Aaaaaaaah! 2015

In a bleak, offbeat world, Smith Steve Oram and Keith Tom Meeten arrive in a quiet woodland clearing. Smith weeps over a photograph of his estranged wife, and the pair perform a crude ritual—urinating on the image—as a grim farewell before they head down toward a vast suburban sprawl.

In the Ryan family home, Denise Lucy Honigman and her mother Barbara Toyah Willcox prepare dinner while they watch a cookery show hosted by the sensational Carolla Shelley Longworth. Barbara copies the recipe and tenderises a steak by banging it on the kitchen door, trying to imitate the host’s flamboyant technique.

Smith and Keith reach town and tail a scruffy man, Og, who masturbates in an underpass. They rough him up, and he scurries back to his “alpha,” Ryan Julian Rhind-Tutt, who answers with a beating and then forces Og to install a new widescreen television. The two outsiders settle in as Ryan and Og play a motorbike game on a console, trying to establish dominance in a world that feels increasingly chaotic.

Back at the dinner table, Og tries to exert control over Denise, and she retreats to the kitchen. There she finds her father, Jupiter Julian Barratt, gazing sadly through the window. Denise offers him a Battenburg cake, and they share a quiet, tender moment before Jupiter returns to the garden, a broken man lying beneath a tree.

A flashback reveals Jupiter’s former power as the alpha of the household. He once served a Sunday roast made from a human leg to Barbara, Denise, and Og, but Og disrupts the scene and Jupiter’s authority begins to crumble. The washing machine breaks, and Barbara lashes out at Jupiter, exposing the fragility of the house’s pecking order.

The present dinner is punctuated by a pudding fight as Ryan’s party looms. A food fight erupts, Barbara is coated in blancmange, and Denise storms out, exhausted by the family turmoil. In the park, Denise meets her streetwise cousin Helen Holli Dempsey, and they drink vodka. Helen, who has itchy VD, agrees to pour vodka down her crotch, and the pair go shoplifting. They’re caught by a shop assistant, Carl Noel Fielding, who is later confronted by the shop manager and subjected to an obscene display before the manager falls asleep. Carl then coaxes Helen into letting him perform a blow job, but Helen bites him, and the pair escape with some cash.

A debauched party unfolds back at the Ryan house. Denise and Helen return, flashing the stolen money in front of a paralytic Ryan. Smith and Keith arrive, marking the walls and defiling the room; Keith rests his testicles on Ryan’s head while Smith photographs the moment on Ryan’s phone, which is later returned to him. The two intruders resume their affair with Denise in the bathroom, further destabilising the already fragile domestic scene.

Smith, Keith, and Denise depart the party and slip into an empty house, where Smith and Denise perform a makeshift “wedding” ritual to celebrate their union, a symbolic claim of belonging in a world where power feels constantly up for grabs.

The next morning, Ryan wakes to find his face still smeared with graffiti, while Jupiter laughs from the fence. Another flashback traces Jupiter’s fall from grace: Barbara and Ryan flirt; Ryan teams with Og, and the alliance leads to Jupiter being beaten while Denise watchfully bears witness.

Ryan discovers the photograph on Keith’s phone of Keith’s testicles resting on his head and erupts in fury. He and Og head out on a vengeful path, clashing with Smith and Keith on waste ground. Keith is stabbed by Og, and Smith pursues Og, smashing his head into the ground and killing him. Smith then rips Ryan’s arm off and leaves him for dead.

Smith and Denise return to the house. Smith rages through the kitchen to prove his alpha status, but Barbara remains unimpressed and laughs when he tries to have sex with her. He retrieves Keith’s body and stages a “funeral” before tucking it into a wheelie bin; Barbara’s reaction remains cool.

Smith invites Jupiter back inside and tries to knit the new “family” together, but Jupiter only manages to wet his pants before sinking into a loop of a childish TV show about an animated chicken. Smith repairs the house and gradually wins Barbara over, and the group settles in to watch a sitcom featuring two big comedy stars, Tony Way and Alice Lowe, whose slow-motion pratfalls punctuate the screen. The moment seems to restore a sense of voice for Jupiter, and Denise appears to accept the illusion of a functioning family.

Yet in the dead of night, Jupiter turns on them, stabbing Barbara, Smith, and Denise, before sinking back into the chair to watch the animated chicken on the TV, suggesting that the cycle of control, peril, and dark humor has only begun.