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There are many mysteries in the world: The Bermuda Triangle; poltergeists; UFOs and a new anomaly. How on earth did director Adrian Edmondson get the money for Guest House Paradiso.
This new British comedy is basically Bottom: The Movie. A wild and woolly collection of sight gags ranging from being smacked in the face with a fridge door repeatedly; hooks in the nose; having your face pummelled by truck wheels and so on.
All of which is very funny - in places.
Rik Mayall and A Edmondson recreate their characters of Richie and Eddie, terminal losers who have moved out of the squalid London flat from the TV series and now run the eponymous, decrepit guest house.
The threadbare story focuses on the unfortunate guests who check in, are affronted by a range of insults and Fawltyesque incidents - all of which would have been rejected by John Cleese and Connie Booth on grounds of being not funny enough to make it onto the small screen.
Mayall is his usual slimy self, oozing selfishness and mock interest in women in the vague hope of having sex while being generally horrible to everyone else.
Edmondson goes through the motions directorially, hoping that a collection of well worn Tom and Jerry gags will help cover the lack of a plot. Alas, they don't. A contrived, wafer-thin story involving serving up radiactive fish to unknowing gags leads to a stomach churning pay off culled straight from Monty Python's Meaning of Life.
It's not a bad film. No, wait. Yes, it's a really bad film but it's not without funny moments.
The special effects are okay and occasionally dodgy while the cast is good. The ubiquitous Simon Pegg from Spaced and Hippies is sorely wasted while Fenella Fielding adds a touch of seasoned charm as a permanently sozzled guest.
By the time the closing credits roll, you wonder if some major scene was removed. It feels incomplete and you, dear viewer, feel severely short changed.
The movie, like the hotel, is a nasty construction which borrows style from time gone by. It feels like a mercifully short stay and ironically, the director lets you check out a lot sooner than you'd imagined.
Dire.
