Jamie Shovlin: Hiker Meat

An exploitation film that never actually existed is being ‘remade’ for a new exhibition at 

Cornerhouse - the biggest to date by conceptual artist Jamie Shovlin. The movie Hiker Meat, 

and its 1970s Italian director Jesus Rinzoli, have been imagined by Shovlin to represent an 

archetype of the exploitation genre, which boomed from the late 1960s to early 1980s.

Exploitation movies were low-budget feature films, usually considered to be of low moral or artistic 

merit. Their makers pursued financial success by ‘exploiting’ popular trends and lurid subject 

matter, including suggested or explicit sex, sensational violence, gore, ‘freaks’ and drug use.

Set in an American summer camp in the 1970s, Hiker Meat includes a full complement of horror 

and slasher film standards; from a hitchhiking lead character with a troubled past to a charismatic 

commune leader with a secret master. It also features architectural destruction and a threatening, 

monstrous presence – with all effects authentically created by hand.

Shovlin collaborated with writer Mike Harte (whose name is an anagram of ‘hiker meat’) and 

composer Euan Rodger to produce a full screenplay and soundtrack for the film, before creating a 

prototype in 2009 by collaging over 1500 found film clips. The beginning and end sections of this

prototype, and a Hiker Meat trailer, have now been recreated shot-by-shot, during filming in the 

English Lake District in June.

Jamie Shovlin explained: “Although most exploitation films might rightly be considered poor in 

terms of form and motivation, I can't help being inspired by the potential the genre offered for very 

idiosyncratic output - alongside its disavowal of mainstream film distribution networks. There was a 

spirit of collaboration and a 'can do' attitude towards film production and distribution that are also The Library Theatre Co, Cornerhouse and Cornerhouse Publications are trading names of Greater Manchester Arts Centre Ltd a company limited by 

guarantee, registered in England and Wales No: 1681278. Registered office 70 Oxford Street Manchester M1 5NH. Charity No: 514719.

common to this project: people believing in an idea to the extent that they somehow make it 

happen, regardless of practicalities and funds.”

The filmed sections of Hiker Meat will take centre stage in Cornerhouse’s exhibition, Shovlin’s 

largest solo show to date, curated by Director of Programme and Engagement Sarah Perks. Perks 

said: “The exhibition aims to capture the genesis and delivery of the Hiker Meat project, beginning 

with a straight-faced presentation of the film alongside costumes and background materials. Later 

galleries will reveal the film’s imagined and reconstructed nature and critically re-consider the wider 

genre - presenting maquettes of our 2013 set and remains from the real thing after some fairly 

explosive filming!”

Extending the collaborative approach, Shovlin, Cornerhouse Artist Film and TIFF are also producing 

an actual feature film, in the form of a ‘meta-mentary’ about the making of Hiker Meat. Rough Cut, 

due for release in late 2013, will combine the filmed sections of Hiker Meat with the equivalent of 

modern DVD extras, including ‘fly-on-the-wall’ production footage and interviews with cast and crew.

Shovlin’s previous exhibitions have included drawings by an imagined missing schoolgirl, and 

memorabilia of non-existent German glam rock band Lustfaust. Hiker Meat originated as an

imagined film for which Lustfaust had composed the soundtrack; it was first exhibited in its 

collaged version in 2010, with later exhibitions focusing on its imagined production and release.

The Cornerhouse exhibition and film mark the realisation of the project, having enabled Shovlin to 

document the attempt to actually produce scenes he put together in collage form back in 2009. He 

said: “The ‘reproduction’ of the three key scenes has been the false heart of the entire enterprise. 

To create the material I wanted for this exhibition, and the film Rough Cut, there had to be an 

absolutely genuine attempt at achieving our goals; the resulting scenes, and footage of our 

attempts to capture them, are now fundamental to the Hiker Meat project’s wider context.

“We’ve adopted the exploitation genre’s collaborative approach to make our own feature, with the 

wry knowledge that we can't possibly re-make a film like Hiker Meat - and don’t actually want to. 

Instead we’ve investigated where else we can go with it, and stripped back the making, unmaking 

and remaking of both the film and the idea, as a kind of ode to the power of imagination.