MUSIC – Come to Daddy by Aphex Twin

Published on: 4th September, 2009

MUSIC - Come to Daddy by Aphex Twin  | read this item

Related News

• SLEAZE QUEEN – Pam Grier
• SLASHER – Scream
• REVIEW – Day of the Dead
• REVIEW – The Gruesome Twosome

Chris Cunningham as just eighteen-years-old when he stepped onto the set of the Clive Barker freakshow that was Nightbreed. Based on his 1988 novella Cabal, the movie was full of an array of bizarre and terrifying monsters and images that would require a team of talented effects artists. Cunningham had been brought in to work on various models under the watchful eye of special effects supervisor Chris Corbould, whose impressive résumé included two Superman movies, the ill-fated Supergirl, British fantasy Krull and two James Bond features. Cunningham may have performed his duties adequately but it hardly gave him the freedom to develop his own unique style. It would take a further seven years before he would produce a film of his own imagination that would both confuse and scare his audience. Surprisingly, however, it would not be a motion picture that would cement his reputation but a music video for a cult dance artist called Aphex Twin.

Cunningham was born on October 15 1970 in Reading, Berkshire, before relocating to Lakenheath, Suffolk. Having first entered the industry sculpting puppets for the popular satire serial Spitting Image, he progressed to feature films with Nightbreed, immediately followed by Richard Stanley’s science fiction thriller Hardware, which first demonstrated his affection for robots. After a stint on the troubled Alien 3 project, he teamed up with Stanley once again for his sophomore effort Dust Devil. Between 1990 and 1992, he regularly designed the front covers for the popular comic Judge Dredd, which would eventually lead to a role on the movie adaptation through August to November 1994, working alongside Hollywood action hero Sylvester Stallone and screen legends Jürgen Prochnow and Max von Sydow. His duties during the production would include illustrations and special makeup effects designer, working under the alias Chris Halls.

He soon came to the attention of renowned filmmaker Stanley Kubrick, who was currently working on his dream project A.I. Artificial Intelligence. Based on the short story Super-Toys Last All Summer Long by science fiction writer Brian Aldiss (who also created Frankenstein Unbound, which Roger Corman was later film in 1990), the premise focused on a couple in the near future who are eager to have a real child, with the revelation being that their son, David, is in fact a robot. Kubrick was fascinated with this idea and first commissioned the story in the early 1970’s, shortly after the release of his groundbreaking science fiction masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey. By 1985, the project had still not moved out of development hell and so he contacted Stephen Spielberg, who himself had become something of a craftsmen after directing two sci-fi blockbusters of his own, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.

Frustrated by the lack of progress of the project, Kubrick suggested to one of his writers to read the children’s classic The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi for inspiration. But it would be the release of Spielberg’s dinosaur hit Jurassic Park that would finally convince Kubrick that the technology now existed to do the story justice. With Christopher “Fangorn” Baker on board as the concept artist (who would later work on the director’s final feature Eyes Wide Shut), Cunningham was hired on the strength of his work on Judge Dredd to supervise the visual effects. It soon became apparent that the project had once again stalled and eventually Cunningham bowed out to pursue his own career as a director. A.I. Artificial Intelligence was eventually released in 2001 and was directed by Spielberg (Kubrick had passed away two years earlier), taking the concept in a more family-friendly direction, something which Cunningham felt lacked the bite of Kubrick’s vision.

In 1995, Cunningham directed his first music video, the bizarre collage of images that he had assembled for Autechre’s track Second Bad Vibe. Finding it a disappointing experience, Cunningham began looking for his next project and soon made the acquaintance of Richard James, a multitalented musician one year younger than him who had slowly built a cult following under his professional moniker Aphex Twin. Having experiment during the early 1990’s with an Avant-garde style ambient sound, James was about to conquer the alternative charts with his next effort, Come to Daddy, an industrial piece full of demonic sounds and menacing lyrics (‘I want your soul, I will eat your soul… Come to daddy!). Despite receiving minor acclaim, James had been unsuccessful at marketing his image, but all that was about to change with the resulting promo video.

When Cunningham was sixteen-years-old, he was chased through the woods by a young boy of nine, who was trying to attack him with a hammer. Riding as fast as he could on his pushbike, he was desperate to get away but was worried that people would see him fleeing from a young child. The experience had terrified Cunningham and he had been left with the feeling of pure fear. Come to Daddy had purely been an experiment for James, eager to try different sounds without any real intentions in mind. But one aspect he would often include in his work were children’s voice, something which would recall Cunningham’s horrifying experience and would lay the foundation of his premise for the music video.

In a derelict council estate, an elderly woman is walking her dog when they pass a pile of rubbish, of which a television set has been left on top. The dog urinates on the side of the box and then suddenly the screen begins to flicker (this ‘resurrection’ by a dog recalls the ludicrous scene from A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, in which Fredy Krueger is brought back to life in a similar manner). A creepy face suddenly appears on the screen, causing the dog to become frantic and bark viciously at the image. A moment later, a group of children behind the woman and they quickly pick up the TV and run away with it, before they begin to attack strangers and cars with large pipes and sticks. Bizarrely, all the kids have the same face as the monster on the television. Eventually, the screen begins to pulse (in a similar manner to David Cronenberg’s classic Videodrome) and the figure climbs out of the TV and lays on the ground, as its scrawny frame begins to take shape. The old woman, unable to escape, comes face-to-face with the beast, which screams violently at her, before it is surrounded by the children who look upon it as their father.

The video was shot on location at a housing estate in Thamesmead, east London. When the filmmakers were shown around the area by a man from the local council, they were instructed that they were not to portray the area in any bad way, which can only make one wonder how they felt about monsters, random violence and demonic children. James himself would portray the creature in the television, which would provide the vocals to the song whilst flailing around frantically behind the screen (echoing Cain’s robotic appearance in RoboCop 2). The evil kids would be played by both children and, as Cunningham called them, ‘midget adults.’ The effect of having them resemble the monster was achieved by the makeup artists designing silicone and latex masks for the actors to wear over their faces.

Unable to shoot the necessary footage on time, Cunningham would return for another day to film various inserts that would make the editing process easier. The experience of making the video for Autechre had left him feeling disillusioned, both with his own talents and his need for creative control, and so with Come to Daddy he was determined to make the film that he wanted to make, without concerning himself with that others would think. Thankfully, James was on the same page and was extremely enthusiastic with what the young filmmaker was doing with his track. The resulting effort would be almost six minutes of true horror, something which would prompt various producers and studios to offer Cunningham the chance to direct his own movie, although he would repeatedly refuse.

Come to Daddy was released on October 6 1997 by Warp Records and proved to be Aphex Twin’s most popular song to date. The video would receive regular airplay on the likes of MTV, although it would usually be shown after the 9pm watershed. Cunningham’s hard work would eventually pay off, with the video winning several awards and being nominated for countless more, including a 1998 MTV Video Music Award. His relationship with James would be a prolific one and the two would collaborate once again two years later on another surreal promo video entitled Windowlicker, as well as two video installations (Monkey Drummer and flex). Come to Daddy would mark the true beginning of Cunningham’s career as a directing, resulting in a such unique videos as Portishead’s Only You, Madonna’s Frozen, Leftfield’s Afrika Shox and Björk All is Full of Love.

Share on Facebook

Tweet This Post

Readers Comments