by Christianna Garrett-Martin

Created on: November 29, 2008

-THE CABLE GUY-

'The Cable Guy' was released in 1996 .- Directed by Ben Stiller (Reality Bites) and starring Jim Carrey, Jack Black and Steven M Kovaks. - Genre: Comedy/Thriller. - BBFC Rating: 12 (cut) - Running Time: 96 Minutes.The Cable Guy is a black Comedy that was ahead of it's time and is mesmerising in its approach to the darker side of comedy. Highly watchable. A film which peaks and troughs from comedy to near horror.

When a young guy Steve Kovack (Matthew Broderick) moves into his new apartment after splitting up with his girlfriend, he can't wait to get the cable TV installed. - Enter 'The Cable Guy' Chip! AKA Ernie Douglas (Jim Carrey) as the extremely strange cable TV installer; with great delight Chip gives Steve a package of cable TV consisting of over 100 channels, for free. Steve tries to slip him $50 dollars for his trouble, as is customary in the States, but all 'this' cable guy wants is a friend.

Now Chip is no ordinary guy, having been dumped in front of the cable TV as a child, and not been given any motherly attention, the emotionally neglected Chip is a bit of a twisted and manic character who is desperately in need of human contact and a true lifelong friend. Steve is a bit of a weak character and doesn't want to upset the man who has just given him free cable, so he goes along with it and pretends to be his friend, thinking it will only be for the short haul and he intends to dump this very strange character as soon as. Little does Steve know that in doing so he will turn the cable guy into a demented stalker. What ensues is a deliciously dark and hilarious satire which embarks upon displaying the effects that the obsessive television age can have upon the consumer. -

Another Jim Carey film I absolutely love! This is a strange and fantastically original theme once again, with a message that is obvious to see. Chip has been raised by television. He is in effect the product of the television age in so much that the cable TV has substituted his mother and become in effect, his parent. So all the messages that the TV programmes have given out to the young and impressionable Chip through his formative years, have instilled in him what life is supposedly all about. Giving him a distorted and unreal image of the world he lives in. Being unable to separate fact from fiction Chip lives in a neo virtual reality and his creepy personality defects impact upon everyone that this weird cable guy comes into contact with.

I love the way Jim Carrey portrays

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