YMMV / Scum

• Anvilicious: The first two versions of Scum are very much this, though not entirely without justification. To non Britons, it should be noted that the Borstal system was abolished in 1982. However, Archer seems to have essentially been designed to provide Author Tract and Author Filibuster. Dog Pound isn't quite as Anvilicious.... at least until the very end, when the riot police show up.
• Crosses the Line Twice: The scene where Davis brags about fucking his girlfriend's mom.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: A good chunk of the criticisms level toward Dog Pound were this (well, at least on IMDB; the actual critical consensus toward it was generally positive). Naturally, the rest of the criticism was They Changed It, Now It Sucks.
  • Roy Minton, who wrote both versions of Scum, thought this about the film, insofar as they cast a lot of the same actors that had been in the TV version two years earlier (in particular Ray Winstone, John Blundell and Phil Daniels.) Minton thought it was more upsetting to see guys barely out of their teens being that violent; when they were 20 or older, it seemed less unnatural.
• Jerkass Woobie: In Dog Pound, Goodyear definitely seems to be this by the end.
• Nightmare Fuel/Tear Jerker: The rape scene and the suicide scenes involving Davis definitely qualify.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • A young Danny John-Jules is one of the prisoners in the film version.
  • Formby is played by Perry Benson, who would later be best known for playing Henry Livingstone in You Rang, M'Lord?.
  • Betts is played by Andrew Paul, who later became better known (on the right side of the law) as The Bill's Dave Quinnan.
• Ron the Death Eater: Certain mean-spirited commenters on YouTube paint Davis as sinister and vicious, despite (or because of) his getting raped in the greenhouse.
• Spiritual Successor: Roy Minton co-wrote Scrubbers (1983), which is mostly Scum, but in a girls' prison. It is sometimes packaged with Scum.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Ray Winstone came to feel that he'd done this for the movie version of Scum. In the original Carlin is shown to be in a relationship with another inmate, but on remaking the film two years later he told the director that he thought it'd be better if that were left out, so it was. He later came to regret this, blaming it on his own insecurity as a young man.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: The amount of mistreatment Carlin, Davis, and other characters go through at the hands of the wardens, and even the other inmates, can make the movie hard to sit through, not helped by the fact that the antagonists remain karma houdinis. Then again, considering Scum was supposed to be a criticism of how borstals were run back in the 70s, this was clearly intentional on the creator's part.
• The Woobie: Davis. DEAR GOD DAVIS! Each version seems to delight in finding new ways to woobify him.

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