VOODOO VALENTINOS

Michael Louis Gould

LOGLINE - When two teenage guys, ‘losers’, on their way to a party in 1975, flag down a witch-doctor-driven taxi, their ‘winner’ expectations for the night turn stratospheric. Comedy ensues courtesy of a powerful, self-image-boosting voodoo potion, the effects of which are wondrous as they are life-scarring.

TAGLINE - ‘bigger the fools, bigger the stars’

SYNOPSIS - A night-long, road comedy set in seventies, northwest England.

The paths of two girlfriendless, working class, teenage misfits are dramatically and hilariously altered by a 'voodoo cabbie' who collects them en route to a middle class, village party to which they have not been invited.

Granny and Tommo are unrelenting in their mockery of each other, kindred spirits though they are; Granny insisting they stick together for the night; Tommo, reticent of parties, doing all he can to get away.

Granny believes that imitating his kung fu teacher, an older northerner, Big Stan (who apparently beguiles teenage girls with cliché oriental wisdom), will be key to his success with females; while Tommo, resigned to life without females, wanting to mask his despondency, ridicules the naïveté of his companion's exuberant believing.

From pub to pub, taxi to party, Granny and Tommo are battered, ‘shagged’ and humiliated beyond belief, courtesy of two merciless bouncers, two fat slags, a witch doctor and a limitless supply of middle class, party eccentrics.

Girls are won/lost, reputations gained/destroyed, all by the effects of a self-image-boosting juju potion, sold to Granny by the cabbie; Granny transforming himself (unintentionally) into a ‘wise’, kung fu superfool, with inhuman strength and immense mind powers; Tommo turning himself (involuntarily) into an obsessed, banana-grabbing monkey-pet, after failing to conjure himself into Rudolph Valentino, his otherwise preferred self-image.

Further conversions to arse-chewing bear and humorously polite defecator force Granny and Tommo out into the night, parting company and leaving behind a house-full of traumatized guests, for which, somehow, they go completely unpunished and remain curiously likeable, having learned absolutely nothing from their experiences.

Charismatic, anarchic, strangely enigmatic, Voodoo Valentinos invites audiences on a fast, dreamlike ride through the seventies night, painting portraits of some of life’s truest, unselfconscious clowns.