2. Characterisation of Stephen Morton
Stephen is the killer. He is the man behind the gun but Tony Grisoni has characterised him as not just a murderer, he is not morally black, rather grey. The reasons for the murder spree are never fully identified. We know he is troubled; a loner, treated with derision by the towns people, an example being Paul who fails to pay him for jobs he does. Stephen cares for his bed-bound mother and finds solace in his obsession with the military. The trigger for the shooting comes when he takes a Chris (Joe Dempsie) on a mock military excursion and lies to Chris, either out of a need to befriend the young man or from his own delusions, claiming that he was part of the SAS. When this lie is revealed by Chris' violent thug of an uncle, the two attack Stephen, chasing him across the forest in a vehicle whilst Stephen is on foot, and culminates with Chris' uncle urinating on the injured and emasculated Stephen. It is impossible to justify the shooting spree but Grisoni offers Stephen Morton some humanity, trying to explain part of what caused him to snap. Having been, seemingly downtrodden by a town, Grisoni explained "It was always important to me to show Stephen as a human being," and that, "What he does is beyond understanding, his acts are monstrous but he is not a monster. The frightening, poignant thing is that he is one of us." Grisoni does not create a monster for the audience to detest, he has created a man; a man who is lost amongst a world so grim and disparaging, he finally loses the only escape he has, and becomes despondent, a despondent and deranged murder who has lost himself. Morton was a murder, but nonetheless a man, one who has been let down by the town. As David claims to the townsfolk that they never see what is going on, an idea of selective understanding to preserve their own innocence and obliviousness to the situation, you start to feel that something could have been done to prevent the horrific event.