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When married gay couple Marc (Tom Bateman) and Fred (Sean Teale) travel from London to a remote B &B in Wales for the weekend, their prime purpose is to taunt Josh (Paul McGann)t he homophobic owner. The year before he had refused to allocate the couple a room with a double bed, so they successfully sued and almost bankrupt Josh in the process. However what they thought would be a few days of fun and mischief bickering with the surly owner turned out to be literally a murderous nightmare in this deliciously entertaining black comedy / thriller in which they barely escaped with their lives.
The drama starts at dinner when the only other guest in the B & B that weekend was a mysterious Russian hunky brute of a man (James Tratas). He couldn’t speak a word of English but somehow that didn’t stop him hitting on Josh’s 16-year-old closeted gay son Paul (Callum Woodhouse). When Fred & Marc initially discovered their plans were to go to a local park which was a notorious gay cruising area, their reactions were actually tinged with jealous. However when snooping around and discovering certain odd things, like the fact that the Russian had a jammer which blocked all the cell-phone signals and cutting them off completely from the outside world, they suddenly started to worry for the young boy’s safety.
Fred set out after the Russian and Paul and tracked them down to the park but he soon deeply regretted his actions when he got embroiled in a drama that was rapid spiraling out of control. Back at the B&B a scared Paul, now having to deal with the fact that his father not only knows about his sexuality, but also that he was responsible for a serious crime for which he was now working hard to push the blame for onto Fred. It rapidly became a situation as to who could outwit who, and if Josh could finally get his own revenge on the gay couple for almost ruining his livelihood by getting them to take the rap for this, which would also clear Paul.
LGBT crime thrillers are rare which you appreciate is such a pity when they are as entertaining as this one which is the debut feature of Brit writer and director Joe Ahearne. Vaguely based on a true story …. well, the first part as there had been a couple of gay couples who had cause to sue Guest House owners ….this scary tale keeps you on the edge of your seat until the final credits roll.
Ahearne was greatly assisted with his superbly talented experienced cast, a luxury not often afforded LGBT indie movies, and it certainly paid off with excellent performances from them all, especially from McCann as the rather creepy Josh.
B & B is a neat lesson in making one think twice about gloating after you win a battle, as you may end up losing the war after all.
