Frightfest 2022: ‘Wreck 1×01: The Talented Mr. Whippy’ Review
Stars: Oscar Kennedy, Thaddea Graham, Jack Rowan, Harriet Webb, Jodie Tyack, Louis Boyer, Anthony Rickman, Amber Grappy, Diego Andres, Peter Claffey, Miya Ocego, Warren James Dunning, Ramanique Ahluwalia, Alice Nokes | Written by Ryan J. Brown | Directed by Chris Baugh
Wreck is set aboard The Sacramentum cruise ship and follows 20-year-old new recruit, Jamie, as he infiltrates the 3000-strong crew in a desperate race to find his missing sister. She was working aboard the same vessel on a previous tour and vanished mid-charter. Jamie is initiated into cruise life and gets a crash course on the tribes within the staff: the theatre kids, the mafias and the low-paid workers. For this overworked and underpaid crew, life below deck can be an odyssey of partying and excess… and they remain oblivious to the bloodthirsty murders taking place on board. Jamie is forced to turn detective and uncover the sinister truth.
Debuting as part of a special Frightfest preview, Wreck comes from writer-creator Ryan J. Brown and all six episodes are directed by Chris Baugh (writer-director of Boys from County Hell and Bad Day For the Cut); and this first episode sets the scene for what is come…
Which, judging by the pilot episode, is a fun and funny take on the slasher genre. And by fun and funny I mean this first episode opens with a killer dressed in a giant duck costume like some serial-killing take on BBC favourite Orville! And on top of that, the plot deals with the social structure and hierarchy of life on a cruise ship, replete with oddball characters that wouldn’t feel out of place in a wacky American sitcom. And that’s the thing, for a British production, Wreck wears its heavy American influence on its proverbial sleeve – which fits the kind of ridiculous motivational talk that the officers of the cruise liner Sacramentum espouse.
This first episode of Wreck, titled “The Talented Mr. Whippy”, opens with a young woman on the run from the aforementioned killer, however rather than become a victim of Quacky the raincoat-wearing killer duck, the young girl climbs over the guardrail, flips her middle finger to the killer and jumps into the waters below – literally giving the bird to the duck before plummeting to her death! It’s a stunning opening that lays out just how the comedy and horror is going to come together in Wreck and hopefully the rest of the show continues in a similar fashion.
What also needs to continue is the high-school-esque shenanigans of the crew of the Sacramentum, which offsets the darker aspects of the show brilliantly – from the parties where the lower-deck crew let off steam; to the “jock and nerd” style social hierarchy; to the ridiculous way the REAL Cormac, who Jamie took the place of on-board the ship, bides his time locked like – as he puts it “that Wikileaks” guy – in Cormac/Jamie’s cabin!
****½ 4.5/5
A fantastic mix and horror and humour, Wreck is set for six 45-minute episodes which will air on BBC Three and the BBC iPlayer later in 2022.
