The Acid House

The Irvine Welsh bandwagon rolls on with this triptych of short stories. We're back in the scrag-end of Edinburgh where, in 'The Granton Star Cause', God (Roëves) turns up as a local drinker to reprimand laddish Boab (McCole) for wasting his life. He turns him into a fly: cue close-up of shit-eating. 'A Soft Touch' is hardly more savoury, as retiring Johnny (McKidd) bides his time while his promiscuous missus (Gomez) and neighbour-from-hell (McCormack) make his life a misery. In the third tale, a rogue tab of acid sees Coco (Bremner) miraculously swap personalities with the baby just born to yuppie scum Rory and Jenny (Clunes and Redgrave), transforming the infant into a rampaging Hibs fan and Coco into even more of a dimwit than he was already. The presence in the last section of the most pitiful animatronic baby in cinema history wins the film its small niche in movie infamy. Overall, it's simply depressing to watch a capable cast devote themselves to such an irredeemably juvenile collection of banal insights and pathetic shock tactics.