Abducted by the Daleks (2005)

The team behind the Fantom Kiler series of “torture porn” atrocities (sold as Polish productions, complete with nonsensical dubbed over dialogue but actually made in Britain by former fanzine editor and film festival organiser Trevor Barley) made this shot-on-video mini-feature in which the most famous of the monsters from television’s Doctor Who capture and torture a group of naked women.

Anyone who’s suffered through the Fantom Kiler films will recognise the style immediately – the worst acting you can possibly imagine (watch one of the “terrified” girls try to stifle her giggles while being menaced by a Dalek), what appears to be the same fake, studio-bound woodland setting, static camerawork, a cast of between-job strippers who lose their clothes for no apparent reason while walking around really, really slowly and the least erotic sexual encounters ever filmed (I doubt that many lesbians really get that turned on by licking each others knees…)

How the hell they thought they were going to get away with this is anyone’s guess – everyone seems to be hiding behind pseudonyms (written by Billy Hartnell, produced by Patrick Baker and directed by Don Skaro!!) but as the film was initially only available through the auspices of UK dealer Trevor Barley (already outed as the director of Fantom Kiler) it was never hard to guess who was behind it all.

After what seems an eternity of driving around in the dark, wandering about in that fake forest and losing all their clothes simply because the script said they should, four young women with more silicone than acting talent get beamed aboard a spaceship where three rather tatty looking Daleks (one each of the red, black and grey varieties) shout a lot, chain the girls up (how? sink plungers surely can’t be that useful when it comes to applying manacles) and shoot badly matted death rays at them in an effort to learn more about the human race. One of the girls turns out to be some sort of Dalek dominatrix slave (the dialogue is so muffled at this point that it’s hard to make out exactly what’s going on) who feebly waves a whip about for a while. Then, to try to spice things up a bit, “Hartnell” and “Skaro” chuck in a completely superfluous sub-plot involving a rampaging serial killer known as the Serial Skinner (who may actually be an alien too) who pops up near the end for no readily discernible reason in footage that looks for all the world like outtakes from one of the Fantom Kiler films. Indeed at this point the Daleks themselves simply vanish from the plot for a while, turning up again at the last minute to deal with the Serial Skinner.

Technically, the film is a mess – the soundtrack is all over the place (Dalek voices are either deafeningly loud or so quiet you can’t hear them), there’s masses of video pixillation throughout and the opening 10 minutes are so deadly dull you feel like you’ve lost the will to live by the time the Daleks finally turn up. Even at a scant 45 minutes, you’ll be giving the fast forward button a good workout on this one. None of the “actresses” have even the merest hint of personality – they simply monotone their dialogue in what sounds like East European accents (which may or may not be genuine) and do stupid things like taking their clothes off in the middle of a forest on a dark and foggy night. Don’t ask why, no-one seemed to have a clue while they were making it so why should we worry…?

To their credit Barley and his cohorts keep their tongues firmly in their cheeks throughout – one naked girl manages to cling to her handbag no matter what happens to her, two others are so engaged in their knee licking that they fail to notice that they’ve been beamed aboard the spaceship until a Dalek barks an embarrassed “Ahem…” at them, and when manacled to the wall one girl gamely does this strange sort of jiggly dance move with her knees to suggest terror and pain prompting her already giggle-prone companion to further fits of hilarity. And watch out for the hyperactive red Dalek who spends the whole film zooming around the single cramped set, forever in danger of crashing into his comrades and demolishing his surroundings (though two of the girls almost do that themselves in their hilarious death scene).

All absolute rubbish of course and apparently shot in a series of single “let’s-not-bother-to-go-back-and-fix-the-mistakes” takes (check out the feet of the Dalek operators clearly visible on several occasions, the repeated shots of the girls looking at the camera awaiting some sort of direction and the crew member lurking behind a tree as the Serial Skinner threatens his latest victim). It’s a genuine oddity, although one suspects that it’s going to be a watch-once-only experience.

Inevitably, the film fell foul of the BBC and the estate of Terry Nation, the man who created the Daleks back in 1963. After it was exposed in a typically leering piece in UK tabloid The Sun, Abducted by the Daleks was spotted being sold on Ebay and the Nation estate and the BBC moved quickly to get the title withdrawn. Tim Hancock, notoriously protective director of Nation’s estate, told the newspaper: “The reason the Daleks are still the most sinister thing in the universe is because they do not make things like porn. They weren’t ever intended to be sexual creatures. It’s simple, Daleks do not do porn.”

Porn is perhaps overdoing it a bit – some rather chaste stroking, the aforementioned knee licking, some inappropriate plunger groping action and one short sequence of a sinister hunter copping a feel near the end doesn’t really qualify as porn in most people’s books. Still, it is remarkable that anyone thought they were going to get away with this so no-one could really be surprised when the copyright holders acted – a late in the day attempt to circumvent legal action by apparently re-titling the film Abducted by the Daloids seemed like clutching at straws…

Curiously, Abducted by the Daleks wasn’t the only 2005 production to take the good Doctor’s most feared enemies names in vain. If the Nation estate and the BBC were shocked by the relatively tame Abducted by the Daleks, one can only guess at what they would make of Gorgeous Gee’s 169 minute hardcore epic, the charmingly titled Dr Loo and the Filthy Fucking Phaleks…