Critics reviews

Among the feature films, AAAAAAAAH! (Steve Oram, 2015) was one of the most memorable, imagining what it might be like if the entire population of London looked like humans but acted like primates. It was ridiculous but strangely moving.

The strength of Aaaaaaaah! lies in the tension between the strange and the quotidian. Its docu-style immersion in the real world – oblivious members of the public stroll past as Oram carries a severed limb into the local convenience store – is integral to this, even as it introduces inconsistencies.

The reason that Aaaaaaaah! is so utterly successful as a piece of cinema is that it never directly acknowledges its satirical intent, playing out a story which never once sees Oram taking a brash side-swipe at a type of person, an institution or an aspect of modern culture (Prince Harry excepted). Its world is fully immersive, and is all the more beguiling because we never have The Rules schoolmarmishly delivered to us as soon as the film starts.

In its enthusiasm for poo-flinging, food-fights, penis-chewing, cannibalism, tea-bagging and sudden stabbings, the film sets out to shock in a particularly cosy way – it's as endearing as it is upsetting.

[Aaaaaaaah!] merges the banally accessible with the wildly experimental... It's a funny, shocking call to devolution, revealing us all for the domesticated but barely civilised creatures that we are. With its irreverent, unsettling social satire and much monkeying about, Aaaaaaaah! first dismembers and then reassembles the primeval drives of patriarchy in its own singular way, and will no doubt elicit from viewers plenty of ooooohs, hahahas and even the odd ‘huh?'.