Hiker Meat / Jamie Shovlin (2015)

This bespoke screening space was dedicated to Hiker Meat, an exploitation film that never actually existed.

Hiker Meat and its fictitious Italian director Jesus Rinzoli have been imagined by artist Jamie Shovlin to represent an archetypal exploitation film – a type of filmmaking characterised by its low budget aesthetic and exploitation of sensational subject matter, which boomed from the late 1960s to the early 1980s.

Originally filmed on site at Grizedale Forest, Hiker Meat is set in American summer camp in the 1970s, and includes a full complement of slasher film standards, from a hitchhiking heroine with a troubled past to a charismatic commune leader and a group of teens who disappear one by one.

Shovlin collaborated with writer Mike Harte and composer Euan Rodger to produce a full screenplay and soundtrack for the film.

Commissioned by HOME Manchester, curated by Sarah Perks and produced by Bren O Callaghan.