| The SF, Horror and Fantasy Film Review |
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THE YOUNG POISONER’S HANDBOOK
Rating: 
UK/Germany/France. 1994.
Director – Benjamin Ross, Screenplay – Benjamin Ross & Jeff Rawke, Producer – Sam Taylor, Photography – Hubert Taczmowski, Music – Bob Lane & Frank Grobel, Production Design – Maria Djurkovic. Production Company – Mass Productions Kinowet/Haut et Court/British Screen/Pandora Cinema.
Cast:
Hugh O’Conor (Graham Young), Anthony Sher (Dr Ernest Zeigler), Roger Lloyd Pack (Frank Young), Ruth Sheen (Agnes Young), Charlotte Coleman (Wendy Young), Simon Kutz (John Stanwick), Jean Warren (Debra), Samantha Edmonds (Sue Butler), Paul Stacey (Dennis), Charlie Creed-Miles (Berridge), Jack Deam (Mick)
Plot: Growing up in the 1960s, Graham Young becomes obsessed with medicine and chemical experiments. When his best friend takes out the girl he desires, he places antimony sulfide on his sandwiches and kills him. After his mother throws out his chemistry set, he starts to poison her and it is assumed she has fallen ill. He follows this by substituting his sister’s eyedrops with acid and then to poison his father. He is arrested and sentenced to Harshhurst Hospital as an incurable psychopath. But he gradually finds rehabilitation under psychologist Ernest Zeigler. Released, he is given a job in a factory but the availability of chemicals soon proves too strong a temptation and he starts poisoning his workmates.
The Young Poisoner’s Handbook claims to be loosely based on a real-life British murderer but, as the credits note, some of the details have been changed. The film is certainly very uneven. It passes through several quite different tones. The first third of it is a joyous black comedy with Hugh O’Conor poisoning his way through his family. Then suddenly it changes into a very earnest and even moving story about the redemption of a murderer through psychotherapy. And then it goes off on a different tack altogether as the released O’Conor starts poisoning his way through the people at work – although this is quite different in tone to the gleeful blackness of the earlier poisonings. There are times when these abrupt changes of tone leave one never quite sure where the film is heading. Nor is ever quite sure which parts of the film director Benjamin Ross is interested in – for example in the first third he takes joyous glee in the poisoning of the family, yet we never see the collapse of the mother, while the poisoning and death of the father takes place entirely off-screen.
Nevertheless the disparate parts add to a quite satisfying whole. The black comedy is genuinely funny at times, especially Ross’s evocation of the sheer banality of working class life in 1960s Britain and the casual ways in which O’Conor manages to introduce poisons to his victims. The therapeutic transformation that comes in the middle section is surprisingly heartfelt and Anthony Sher’s performance here is very good. Of course the film itself would be nothing without the central presence of the wonderful Hugh O’Conor. He gives a remarkably creepy performance, his eyes radiating a piercing intensity, yet also counters the performance with a perfect politeness with often quite hilarious results. One wishes O’Conor would appear on screen again but apart from playing the nervous young priest in Chocolat (2000), one has yet to see him in anything else.
Copyright Richard Scheib 1996
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