Scum

The visual equivalent of spare, brilliant prose that occasionally bleeds (and bleeds and bleeds) into poetry.

One of the great films about boys and violence ...

It's a film that hammers home the depravity of institutionalization...

Alan Clarke's direction is hard, clear and utterly uncompromising, and the performances of his largely unfamiliar cast are so authentic and convincing as to make one flinch.

Scum lives up to its title to this day, its manic energy balanced with an assured and naked openness that creates a searing level of realism and, as such, savagery.

Clarke's prison, like Losey's, crystallizes the societal rot on the outside

Has a raw power that is disturbing.