Tummy Monster (2024)

So “Tales” (Lorn Macdonald) has been reduced to kipping in his Scottish tattoo parlour when he is awoken in the middle of the night by a call from “Truth” (Michael Akinsulire) who tells him that his very famous client has heard of his prowess with the needles and wants to visit. After frantically tidying the place a bit, he opens the shutter to reveal his caller and his ultra-cool charge (Orlando Norman). He recognises him immediately and is determined to get a selfie. Politely asking, though, he is told no. He finds this refusal a bit rude and what now ensues sees the former become a little belligerent and the latter man start to play a calculating game of attrition with his prey that starts to expose some fairly substantial character flaws in the young tattooist who has an ex, a daughter, a girlfriend - well, more of a teenage one-night stand, and somehow his slightly aloof visitor seems to be able to elicit a stream of truthful consciousness that might just prove cathartic, whilst also illustrating just how much many of us live desperately seeking approval and vindication - even from complete strangers. There is also something quite sinister about the visitor, drawing an obvious comparison to something  altogether demonic but unfortunately we have to go through an hour of excessively repetitious dialogue before we get to anything like an interesting part of the film. Indeed, the eerily effective Norman must trot out his vaguely annoying “rub your tummy…” instruction about five hundred times - at least often enough for it to become drilled into just about everyone’s subconscious (including our’s). The last ten minutes do bring things into a sharper focus and there’s a bit of humour to be had from “Tales” and his range of self-induced predicaments, but essentially this is a short feature that could have been condensed much more potently into an half an hour that could have delivered much more strongly. Macdonald does deliver quite well, but the plot recycles itself far too often before it makes any headway and for much of this I wasn’t so much intrigued by this rather selfish and odious man - or his mysterious guest as I was just a bit bored. It’s a quirky piece of independent cinema that does make you think, but just not quickly or often enough.