With a tantalising teaser played during last year’s London Frightfest, Tiago Teixeira’s feature debut Custom makes its world premiere at the Glasgow edition. It centres on Harriet (Abigail Hardingham, also an associate producer) and Jasper (Rowan Polonski), a couple who have struggled to get success with their art and have branched out into making custom porn films to make money. Their contact Bishop (Brad Moore) introduces them to a new client, known only as The Audience, who commissions them to make ritualistic videos that begins to collapse the boundaries of reality for the couple.
The VHS aesthetic used throughout the film and thematic concerns with how film can warp your mind means that Custom is inevitably comparable to analogue horror classics like Videodrome and Ring, but Teixeira’s vision is his own. In focusing on the sex work industry, he immediately opens up new territory for the typical paranoid horror film by highlighting the contrast between personal fulfilment and meeting the demands of an audience. Sadly, it’s not a theme explored with huge depth as Teixeira instead uses it as a jumping off point for stylised surrealism.
The langerous, dreamlike quality is deliberate and in line with paranoid, conspiratorial storyline. How divisive such an approach will be amongst audiences will be interesting to see.
As the writer, director and editor, Teixeira shows impressive control over the film in creating a consistent vision. There is well-built tension as Jasper breaks the Audience’s rule and watches back their videos, causing his reality to warp as he’s confronted with scenes he doesn’t remember performing. Through this storyline, Teixeira highlights his own control over the film that we are watching and has us empathise with Jasper as we question whether the things we see are real or an enhanced form of hypnotic suggestion.
This unease is directly linked to creating art, which is what Jasper and Harriet are so desperate to do. The equipment that the Audience asks them to use is described by Bishop as a “chemical process, physical. What the camera sees is literally being conjured into the material world.” And we see Jasper and Harriet going through this process, becoming increasingly sweaty and dishevelled because of the videos. Not making the videos or watching the videos, but being part of making them. Hardingham and Polonski engage enthusiastically with the material as the couple go through ups-and-downs because of their work and their commitment helps the film massively.
Even at an hour and seventeen minutes, there are dips in pacing as it overindulges in mysterious atmosphere and enigmatic dialogue. It is tempting to make the obvious criticism of “it would’ve been better as a short” but there’s plenty of scope for the material on offer. The langerous, dreamlike quality is deliberate and in line with paranoid, conspiratorial storyline. How divisive such an approach will be amongst audiences will be interesting to see.
Custom had its World Premiere at Glasgow Frightfest 2024
