Forgotten Danny Dyer thriller critics called ‘nasty and exploitative' is streaming for free
Danny Dyer's obscure thriller from the 2000s critics slammed for being 'nasty and exploitative' is currently streaming for free in the UK.
Co-starring Sex Education's Gillian Anderson, this brutal revenge film pits the unlikely pairing against a group of violent men following a devastating attack.
EastEnders legend Dyer portrays Adam, a young security technician who begins a whirlwind fling with glamorous businesswoman Alice Comfort (played by Anderson).
After heading to a party together - where they enjoy a night of passion - they return home, only to hit a stag in Alice's car and experience a horrifying attack by a group of men.
Months later, the pair are healed but traumatised and hatch a sadistic plan to get revenge.
Titled Straightheads, this extremely shocking thriller is available for free on Channel 4 for anyone who thinks they can stomach it.
Receiving mixed to negative reviews from critics, The Guardian went so far as to give it just one star, calling the film 'nasty and nonsensical' and 'a feature-length exercise in wrongness'.
Empire was a little more generous with their two-star review, praising Anderson's 'engaging performance', adding it '[delves] into the sexual psychology of a traumatised odd-couple with interesting results'.
They concluded: 'Anderson bares (almost) all in this flawed but fitfully fascinating thriller with a comical, if less compelling, turn from Danny Dyer.'
While the Times penned: 'It has its thoughtful moments and is satisfying on a base level, but it's an exploitation flick at heart.'
However, Straightheads does have its fair share of defenders, with a Letterboxd user claiming: 'There are still parts of the film that I don't think need to be there…
'But for the most part I think the film was fantastic and is one that I don't think many will want to watch again because of how effective it is while not showing too much. I give the film a 5/5.'
Another thriller fan said: 'Brilliant, brutal, breathtaking ....great slice of grub pie a la Straw Dogs and Piggy.'
And a final user wrote: 'Horrible topic but Gillian's emotional range here is incredible, she is such an insanely talented actor… still, a really hard movie to watch.'
Will you be braving Straightheads this week or is this boundary-pushing video nasty getting a wide berth?
Straightheads is available to stream on Channel 4.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Metro
8 minutes ago
- Metro
Charity hides a secret from Sarah in Emmerdale as devastating scenes lie ahead
Sarah Sugden's (Katie Hill) journey to parenthood has been a complete roller coaster in Emmerdale, and it's about to hit a sharp downwards turn. After Sarah underwent an emergency hysterectomy it looked like her dreams of becoming a mum were dashed, but Cain Dingle (Jeff Hordley) came forward with the idea they find a surrogate. That too went south when they learned Sarah's illness meant an agency wouldn't touch her with a barge pole, so Charity Dingle (Emma Atkins) magnanimously stepped up to the plate, but without husband Mack's (Lawrence Robb) approval. After some deep discussions and the threat of an ending marriage, Charity and Mack worked things out and the surrogacy plans could continue, and Sarah and Jacob (Joe-Warren Plant) got engaged. After Charity passed all the tests, the doctors were able to implant the embryos, and now it's full steam ahead for the baby plans. With everything so blissfully on track, Mack and Charity go for a lovely walk. Disaster strikes when Charity slips and falls, kicking off a huge chain of events. Firstly, she must manage her own anxiety that it might have affected the implantation. She's terrified that a stupid action could put paid to Sarah's dream. More Trending Back at Jacob's, a nervous charity is trying to convince herself she's fine and in doing so decides that when Sarah arrives home she simply won't tell her what happened, a tactic that has worked so well for Charity in the past. Want to be the first to hear shocking EastEnders spoilers? Who's leaving Coronation Street? The latest gossip from Emmerdale? Join 10,000 soaps fans on Metro's WhatsApp Soaps community and get access to spoiler galleries, must-watch videos, and exclusive interviews. Simply click on this link, select 'Join Chat' and you're in! Don't forget to turn on notifications so you can see when we've just dropped the latest spoilers! Sarah and Jacob can't help but fuss over Charity, which heightens her anxiety, so she does her best to deflect things by suggesting Sarah and Jacob have an engagement party. The couple decide it's a good idea while Charity is going out of her mind. Her panic rises as she rushes to the toilet where she discovers she is bleeding. She confesses to Vanessa (Michelle Hardwick), but she still cannot bear to tell Sarah. View More » Charity is in line to both destroy Sarah's dreams and betray her yet again. Is it all over with one simple fall? MORE: All Emmerdale spoilers for next week as Vinny addresses his sexuality MORE: 27 Emmerdale pictures for this week confirm concerning Charity development MORE: Charity turns to Vanessa as another devastating ordeal is confirmed in Emmerdale
Metro
8 minutes ago
- Metro
Coronation Street fan-favourite falls and bangs his head in devastating scenes
Aadi Alahan (Adam Hussain) reaches his lowest ebb in upcoming Coronation Street episodes as his previous mistakes catch up with him – and he ends up with a nasty injury. Left responsible for the corner shop in Dev (Jimmi Harkishin)'s absence, Aadi was keen to show that he has inherited his father's flair for business. Sadly, for everyone concerned, he really hasn't. He ended up getting the business into so much debt he was forced to enlist Brody Michaelis (Ryan Mulvey) to stage a robbery as part of an insurance scam to try to pay the debts off – only to find the insurance wouldn't pay up because he'd missed a payment. Added to these woes, in an attempt to kick back from the world of business and have some fun, Aadi threw a party – but that went horribly wrong, too. Lauren Bolton (Cait Fitton) ended up accidentally taking some LSD and wandered off into the night, being tortured by terrifying hallucinations of Joel Deering (Calum Lill), the man who previously abused her. She ended up falling and badly injuring herself. Aadi and Lauren have started a sweet relationship together since then, but this is bound to be less sweet when she finds out the person who spiked her at the party was Aadi – even though it wasn't deliberate. Luckily on the business front at least, Aadi's about-to-be step-mum Bernie Winter (Jane Hazlegrove) came up with a plan to help him out financially by creaming off some of her and Dev's wedding fund. In upcoming episodes the wedding day arrives, but as the ceremony is about to begin, Bernie's health takes a turn and she collapses, struggling to breathe. As she's rushed off to hospital and Dev summons everyone to her side, it's clear that this is serious. For Aadi, his world has come crashing down. Fearing that he's partly to blame for Bernie's collapse he knows that without her in his corner it's only a matter of time before Dev finds out that he made a mess of the business. More Trending Feeling incredibly guilty about that and about hiding the truth about the party from Lauren, Aadi resorts to getting drunk in Victoria Gardens, ignoring Lauren's attempts to call him. Want to be the first to hear shocking EastEnders spoilers? Who's leaving Coronation Street? The latest gossip from Emmerdale? Join 10,000 soaps fans on Metro's WhatsApp Soaps community and get access to spoiler galleries, must-watch videos, and exclusive interviews. Simply click on this link, select 'Join Chat' and you're in! Don't forget to turn on notifications so you can see when we've just dropped the latest spoilers! Eventually he decides it's time to confess everything to Lauren. He also tells Bernie and Dev what happened, and they're horrified. With his dad's reaction ringing in his ears, Aadi heads out again and Theo (James Cartwright) and Gary (Mikey North) later find him in a drunken state leaning against Gary's van. As Theo tries to gently steer him away, Aadi falls and bangs his head. View More » With Adam Hussain set to leave the show, could this blow to the head be a fatal one for Aadi? MORE: Exit looms for Aadi in Coronation Street as he makes two major confessions that change everything MORE: All 31 Coronation Street pictures for next week as major characters search for answers MORE: Major Coronation Street couple not getting back together as legend puts to bed reunion claims
Telegraph
9 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Claims that Queen Victoria had a secret child are pure clickbait
Rarely has the humble question mark done so much heavy lifting in a programme title. Because for all its proclamations of 'overwhelming evidence' that Queen Victoria had made an honest man of faithful ghillie John Brown, the jury remained very much out on Channel 4's Queen Victoria: Secret Marriage, Secret Child?. The evidence that Queen Victoria had indeed married her loyal servant-cum-companion and had a child with him? She didn't go out much for a couple of years after Prince Albert's premature demise and could have hidden a lot under her signature voluminous skirts. And – besides a note describing a dodgy deathbed confession from a Scottish vicar who claimed he officiated the ceremony – that was about it. Taking the gossipy scribblings of a Swiss tabloid, musing that Victoria was hiding a pregnancy secret, as some kind of starting point, historian Fern Riddell embarked on a flight of fancy that had her staring at a picture of John Brown and cooing on about how sexy he was. 'Looking at this you can see why Victoria was so incredibly drawn to him,' sighed the academic who was clearly in the grip of a fangirl crush. Putting two and two together and coming up with something like 69, Riddell interpreted the letters and postcards between the monarch and her servant with all the gushing lust of a feverish romance novelist. Landing on any turn of phrase or declaration of devotion that supported her theory – well, she has got a book to flog – Riddell strove to present pure conjecture as indisputable fact. I wasn't buying it. Which could not be said for sometime judge and media legal everyman Robert Rinder, who had been presumably enlisted to cast an objective eye on proceedings. But he too got swept up in Riddell's elaborate fantasy. 'It blows history up,' was just one of the many bizarre overstatements that littered a story spun from the flimsiest of threads. It all felt rather prurient. The hook for it all, which could have been delved into further, was Riddell's discovery of a John Brown family archive. How she got her hands on this mysterious archive remained obscure, but it had led her to tattooed Angela from Minnesota who believed she was descended from history's most celebrated ghillie. The likeness was not striking. This is where we really could have done with the forensic approach of Who Do You Think You Are?, tracking the lineage of 'Mary Ann', the supposed child of Victoria and Brown, down through the generations. Mary Ann had, we were told, been passed off as the offspring of John Brown's brother and his wife and whisked to New Zealand for safe-keeping. But the evidence supporting this theory amounted to little more than hearsay. Tracking down the missing links in the chain to Angela would have given the story some much-needed ballast. Riddell has, I understand, earned a degree of credibility as a social historian, but here she played the part of a starry-eyed fantasist, reading so much between the lines into the correspondence between Queen Victoria and John Brown that credulity flew out of the Balmoral window long before the closing credits. This isn't history, it's clickbait.
