It Couldn't Happen Here

This film starts with arty images and Neil Tennant riding a bicycle on the path near the seashore and the title tune playing. The music is very good in the film with many hit songs such as Always on my Mind, Rent and It's a Sin featured. I've been a fan of the Pet Shop Boys since they arrived on the scene in the mid-eighties and like their oddness and style. This film is a surreal trip the Boys take somewhere in Southern England. They seem to have a fascination with Scunthorpe. Most of the actors play multiple characters, including respected Joss Ackland as a priest and an insane murderer who utters about Salvador Dali and tarot cards; former New Avenger and coffee ad-man Gareth Hunt as a practical joker, a morose postcard-seller and a wig-wearing ventriloquist whose philosophical dummy talks on its own; and current Eastender and Carry On veteran Barbara Windsor in two brief roles. There are some striking images on show, such as a man walking down the street on fire, men who look like zebras and cows on railway station platforms. It's sort of a Greenaway-wannabe type film, but with the star music duo's songs added. But it's still an interesting and amiable journey to experience.

A real gem of an indie film. British, with great production value, lots of strange dollying shots and some fisheye shots too. The look of it is like a sparce and cheaply-made Terry Gilliam film, with a minimal and very absurdist plot filled with odd references to the Pet Shop Boys songbook, their childhoods, and their love for surrealist art, kitsch gay, biker, slapstick, and Derek Jarman films, as well as touches of Steven Wright jokery and some nice colors. I've got this on tape, and yes, you can't find it anywhere! The Pet Shop Boys are brilliant! Now, if they did it again, they should come up with a real script, and have someone like Baz Luhrmann or better yet David Cronenberg make it. Horrific, asexual, glamorous, poppy, tripped-out, and often quite, quite funny. Neato!

This surely must be one of the most surreally funny film that I have every seen - who could forget Joss Ackland's priest or Gareth Hunt's over-the-top breakfast order. The must surely have provided some inspiration to the classic League Of Gentlemen comedy team.

If you're a PSB fan like me, the music is terrific (combination of the Please and Actually albums and some of the songs are remixed).

You get to see scenes that were incorporated into some of the group's videos from the Actually album.

As for the film, it's one of the strangest films I've ever seen (No idea why but it had the mood and dark scenes that reminded me of Clockwork Orange).

You get to hear Chris speaking which is a rarity and Neil does a good job throughout the film.

Might be an interesting project to resurrect this movie with newer PSB hits and updated footage.

Maybe Neil and Chris as pensioners 😃

I love this film...its so odd. Filmed in part at Clacton By The Sea...a coastal town north east of London. A place i used to summer at when i was a child and living in Colchester.

The movie is full of strange and funny ramblings...hilarious one liners...theatrical delivery of "classic" Pet Shop Boys songs.

This movie reminds me of other artists such as Laurie Anderson or Mikel Rouse.

The (vague) plot is somewhat hard to follow (as it is intentionally designed being a surrealistic (pop) "art" peace).

Characters are amusing and the dance numbers...right out of the mid 80's mtv craze...reminds one of the elaborate videos of Micheal Jackson or Madonna.

If you like the pet shop boys....if you remember fondly (and perhaps with some embarrassment) the 80's. This is great! As far as i know this film is long out of print... however one can easily find it as a rather small torrent file on the web for immediate download.

Seek it out if you like the odd and the unusual...and 80's disco pop!! -k