ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Joseph Perry writes for the film websites Gruesome Magazine, The Scariest Things, Horror Fuel, The Good, the Bad and the Verdict and Diabolique Magazine; for the film magazines Phantom of the Movies’ VideoScope and Drive-In Asylum; and for the pop culture websites When It Was Cool and Uphill Both Ways. He is also one of the hosts of When It Was Cool’s exclusive Uphill Both Ways podcast and can occasionally be heard as a cohost on Gruesome Magazine’s Decades of Horror: The Classic Era podcast.
Official synopsis: Graham Chapman stars as happily married Arthur Harris, who becomes suicidal when his wife suddenly up and leaves him. Trying and failing miserably to do the deed himself, when a peculiar handyman (BAFTA-winner Sir David Jason) turns up on his doorstep to offer his services, he enlists the help of this strange stranger to kill him instead, with shockingly hilarious results.
As a decades-long fan of Monty Python’s Flying Circus and the various projects with which the members of its troupe have been involved, I was keen on checking out director Peter Medak’s 1978 feature The Odd Job starring Graham Chapman. Cowritten by Chapman and Bernard McKenna, the film is one of those comedies where you can tell what was meant to be funny, but the humor just doesn’t land successfully enough to garner many actual laughs.
Although the performances are generally fine — Richard O’Brien as the leather queen henchman of a gangster is a scene stealer — characters are often written or portrayed broadly, or seemingly just there for convenience, whether it be for attempts at laughs or to try to make the plot more absurd. Questions abound, such as why Harris would continue to want to commit suicide when a neighbor in his building attempts to seduce him the very night his wife left him, and why, after Harris’s wife returns home, he doesn’t simply try to let his would-be murderer know that the plan is off.
As a curiosity, The Odd Job is certainly worth a watch, as it is interesting to see what Chapman, McKenna, and Medak were attempting to pull off. Monty Python and Graham Chapman completists will definitely want to give it a look.
Chapman and McKenna were a bit more successful with 1983’s Yellowbeard, which saw Peter Cook join the duo as a co-writer.
Severin Films releases The Odd Job in its worldwide Blu-ray premiere on 25 August 2025, and the film will also be available on digital on Amazon Prime on the same date. The film is now scanned in 2K from director Peter Medak’s personal 35mm print and comes complete with a slew of special features. It’s available to pre-order now at https://severinfilms.co.uk/.
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