British Council Logo UK Films Database
Project Detail

Hard Shoulder

Synopsis

Carl Foster, a work obsessed man, reluctantly agrees to a weekend away with his disgruntled wife and disruptive children - it’s as much as he can do to muster any kind of enthusiasm for the few days he must endure in their company. Their constant bickering finally takes its toll on Carl when they are passed, on a deserted country road, by a convoy of ‘carnival types’, who, by mischief or accident, cause Carl to swerve off the road. With rage descending Carl gets into heated exchange with the travellers. Taking an enforced stop hours later, in a small layby, the family are again affronted as their stationary vehicle is rammed by an unseen assailant in a large truck. Dazed by the impact they wake, bound and gagged, within the dreary confines of an abandoned roadside diner, with, seemingly, the same carnival types now their abductors and antagonists. As the gang demeans, insults, and tortures each of their captives in turn, it falls to Carl to free his family from their predicament. But not everything is as it seems, their environment not as tortuous as they imagined, and Carl not all that he would have us believe.
Visit Film Website

Details

Year
2012
Type of project
Features
Running time
85 mins
Format
35mm
Director
Nicholas David Lean 1st Feature
Producer
Nicholas David Lean, Gabrielle Whyte-Hart, Mark Booth
Executive Producer
Mark Booth, Alan Booth, Caroline Whyte- Buchler
Editor
Derek Burgess
Screenwriter
Nicholas David Lean
Director of Photography
Steven Priovolos
Production Designer
Claudia Brewster
Sound
John Quinn
Composer
Patrick Savage, Holeg Spies
Principal cast
Wil Johnson, Jamie Foreman, Jon Campling
Associate Producer
Steven Simmons
SFX & MU Supervisor
Mike Peel

Genre

Action

Categories

Fiction

Production Status

Complete

Production Company

Oceanstorm Films

WhyteBooth Pictures

Page updates

This page was last updated on 12th May 2025. Please let us know if we need to make any amendments or request edit access by clicking below.

Suggest amendments

See also

You may also be interested in other relevant projects in the database.

Hard Shoulder Hard Shoulder

Director: Nicholas David Lean

Year: 2010

When a work-obsessed man reluctantly agrees to a weekend away with his disgruntled wife and disruptive children, a leisurely trip to the country becomes a fight for survival as a convoy of old-world carnival-type travellers force the family off the road, and then seem to engage them in a series of terrifying mind games in an abandoned roadside diner.

Action Horror Fantasy Sci-Fi
A young girl with the lights of an amusement arcade behind her Amusement

Director: Stephanie Zari

Year: 2026

With the clock ticking on her trip to the amusements, a downbeat ten year old girl needs to act quickly to make her funds count and win her dream prize, but she hasn’t contended with the self-appointed king of the amusements and his attempts to thwart her simple plan.

Adventure Children’s Comedy Drama Woman Director
A young man, sits alone in a cafe, deep in thought. A bouquet of disregarded roses in front of him. The Game

Director: Blaize Mott

Year: 2026

Donald, a lonely young man desperate to improve his dating life, hires a manipulative pick-up artist, Charles, to teach him how to meet and attract women. Over the course of one night in London, Donald is pulled into a world of performance, pressure and control, where confidence becomes coercion and desire begins to blur with power. What began as a harmless lesson on love transforms into a night where the methods he is instructed to use to achieve his goal are far darker than he could have ever imagined.

Drama Thriller