‘The Acid House’: The insane 1990s movie from the mind of Irvine Welsh
Scottish author Irvine Welsh published his first book, Trainspotting, in 1993. Within three years, his stories about heroin-addicted, financially struggling young friends were adapted for the big screen by Danny Boyle. The film has since become a British classic, acclaimed for its mix of humour and poignant exploration of poverty and drug abuse.
Trainspotting captured a moment in time that still rings true today. While the movie is well-remembered for its “Choose life” speech, Welsh has reflected on this sentiment decades later, stating, “People can’t get jobs. People will never buy a house. They can’t buy nice things. Everything is fucked even if you’re not on drugs.”
Welsh’s ability to represent the lives of those negatively affected by austerity is a running theme within his work. However, with his 1994 short story collection, The Acid House, Welsh incorporated surrealist influences to convey these topics, resulting in a series of bizarre stories about various characters, some incredibly corrupt, others timid or aimless. Through these vignettes, Welsh uses clever humour to explore the vast spectrum of humanity.
Naturally, following the success of Trainspotting, it wasn’t long for Welsh’s other work to be picked up for adaptation, and The Acid House was next in line. Released in 1998 and directed by Paul McGuigan, the movie contained three segments, each an adaptation of one of the short stories within the collection. These are ‘The Granton Star Cause’, ‘A Soft Touch’ and ‘The Acid House’.
Just like Trainspotting, The Acid House captures the 1990s incredibly well. However, it merges surrealism into a harsh world of reality, making the movie feel as disorientating as the characters’ lives, reflecting the chaos at the heart of a society fuelled by violence, drugs and discontentment.
In ‘The Granton Star Cause’, the main character, a layabout named Boab, finds himself transformed into a fly in a Kafka-esque turn, attempting to take revenge on people such as his ex-girlfriend. ‘A Soft Touch’ isn’t much cheerier, with protagonist Johnny marrying a prostitute, only for her to begin an affair with the neighbour, which leaves him facing emotional and physical torment from the new couple. Finally, in ‘The Acid House’, Trainspotting alumni Ewen Bremner appears as a drug-addicted co-dependent raver who magically switches bodies with a newborn baby.
Although The Acid House is no Trainspotting, it’ll almost certainly appeal to fans of Danny Boyle’s ’90s classic. Plenty of strange scenes will make viewers laugh and recoil simultaneously, particularly the one in which the insect version of Boab places dog shit in some food while his ex-girlfriend has sex with another man. The camera moves erratically between their intense love-making session and close-ups of fly Boab sitting on a pile of animal faeces.
If you’re looking for a movie that captures the state of ’90s Britain in all its griminess and nihilism with a strong dose of dark humour, then it might be time to add The Acid House to your watchlist.
