Mark Morris, best known to you and me as the writer of the Doctor Who audio drama Freakshow, among others, takes the pen for the second of Bafflegab’s Hammer Chillers, The Fixation. Miles Jupp, who I guess has been in some stuff, stars as Ian Hibbert, but for Doctor Who fans the true delight is getting two companion mums for the price of one, as this story features both Camille “Jackie” Coduri and Jaqueline “Sylvia” King.
Ian is the man with the titular fixation, starting with a night where a man drops trash in his front yard. And so he starts the group that despite his protests becomes known as CUD: “Clean Up Darwell”. But some people don’t want their rubbish picked up… It’s a slightly odd premise, but that’s what makes it work, because it seems so unlikely that anyone would care so much about someone doing everyone else a favour (though Ian isn’t an altogether great guy). Morris’s characters feel fairly real (aided and abetted by their solid performance, of course), and he’s not averse to bits of humour, which work, too.
If there’s anything I don’t like, it’s the way the resolution is conveyed, but I do really like the idea of it, and it’s difficult to know a better way in the confines of a 30-minute story. The sound design and the direction once again add to the effect quite well — one really felt the isolation and desperation of the Hibbert family as things escalated. The Fixation is a suitably disconcerting way to spend a half-hour, another solid Hammer Chiller.
The Fixation (by Mark Morris) was released by Bafflegab in June 2013.
