Stay at least 2m from Daddy, if you even have to come to him at all.

Day 133 of the lockdown: pasta is more valuable than gold, nobody remembers the taste of food that isn't covered in a rich, tomato-based sauce and people have stopped wondering how and with what their neighbours are wiping their arses because the alternatives range from disparaging to outright grim.

OK, exaggerations aside, it's a Thursday I guess, although I have completely lost track of days now that I don't have my after-work routines any longer. I count myself lucky that I've been working from home for a good while, so nothing much has changed and if you're one of the very many who are about to get royally fucked by the Government then you have my very genuine sympathy. Stay safe, stay strong, stay alive.

One thing that has occurred to me is that with cinemas  shut and DVDs not high on the official essential delivery list, there is a possibility that the quality of movies I'm watching is going to take a bit of a Netflix-related dip. Further of a dip, if we're being honest. Rest assured that if I have to suffer, I will happily drag you along with me into the cinematic abyss. Add me to the list of key workers already and I'll take my applause at 8pm on the dot. Fortunately, I have a smallish stockpile of DVDs I've not got round to watching yet and that might see off a few weeks. Anyway, we're still here, let's get on with things shall we?

I have an increasing respect for both Elijah Wood and Daniel Ratcliffe. After fronting two of the biggest selling and most popular book to film franchises in known human history, neither one of them actually needs to work again. I don't know if it's deliberate, but neither one has readily jumped at the chance to head up another blockbusting mega saga and they appear to be striving for an altogether different idea of success; most recently Radcliffe snuck in under the Radar with the bizarre-looking Guns Akimbo (definitely on the watch list) and Elijah Wood... well Elijah Wood made Come To Daddy.

I don't know if the filmmakers are aware of Aphex Twin, but it wouldn't surprise me. Come To Daddy isn't as existentially disturbing as the eponymous video (or Rubber Johnny that followed it) but it is certainly a weird, dark little movie that basically nobody saw and probably barley made its budget back. I saw the trailer on one of those Youtube 'trailer of the week' compilations that I will watch over and over again given the opportunity and I was intrigued. It seems a simple enough premise: estranged Father contacts his long lost son asking him to visit and when he does, everything goes a  bit pear-shaped. What I loved about it was that although this is exactly what happened, it did not happen even the remotest of ways I was expecting and for once, perhaps the only time in  months and months, the trailer gave away exactly zero major plot points. In fact I think the trailer is mostly made up from the first sort of 10 minutes of run time.

They've billed this as a dark horror/comedy and although it does have a very dry, jet-black humour in places, it's not laugh out loud funny. The main thing Come to Daddy excels in is being just on the very edge of absurd. Corpses stored in pantries, grappling prostitutes, non-native English speaking sex tourist, odd haircuts, a literal shit-pen, and perhaps not the first use of clingfilm as a murder weapon, but probably the first time I've seen it used to bludgeon  someone's face off and certainly the most interesting choice of last words I've seen committed to celluloid all make this movie a weird little gem. At the heart of it though is a genuinely heart warming story of a young, disaffected man with a bad haircut and a penchant for lying about Elton John reconnecting with his long absent, increasingly shady but disarmingly honest deadbeat Dad though the medium of hastily improvised murder. Look, I already said it was odd and frankly quite a lot of it it's not only wildly improbable, impractical and outright ridiculous but that isn't even remotely the point. Is it likely that someone partially scalped down to the actual brain in a car accident would be up and about, wandering down the street spouting vital pieces of plot exposition? No. Is anyone actually likely to be distracted enough by the description of a lady with large boobs hanging around the motel car park that they simply abandon their post leaving vital room keys unattended? Again, no. Why is that guy's dying utterance simply the name "Arthur". It doesn't matter alright, just sit back and let the weirdness wash over you.

Everyone seems to be having a blast. Wood will always be Frodo no matter how many odd moustaches he grows, but he's a decent actor and if anyone can pull off having a receipt spike jammed though his face, it's him (especially when he doesn't have to deal with accidentally homo-erotic script writing. The supporting cast is also pretty much spot on including the guy who played Wheels in Spaced cropping up as an unhinged 70's throwback kidnapper. Come to Daddy sort of reminded me of Mandy; not so much the plot, art direction or the intensity even, but just the feeling of a production company putting together something they truly felt passionate about, without too much interference from a studio determined to squeeze as many dollars out of it as they could. It's nice to know that there are a few of those sorts of movies left.

I doubt I'll put this on regular rotation; it's not as gripping as all that, but I wasn't mad at the hour and a half it whittled away. Only 24,478.5 left before I can potentially leave the house...