Deadly Cuts

They’re going to do more than “take a little off the top” in Rachel Carey’s blackly comic feature debut, as a group of working-class Dublin hairdressers become accidental vigilantes to protect themselves from the local gang threatening their neighbourhood. Salon stylist Stacey Barry wants two things in life: one, to win the upcoming Ahh Hair! championship, Ireland’s preeminent competition for hairdressing; and, two, to use the prize money to reunite with her mother in Spain. Unfortunately, she lives in Piglinstown, one of the roughest neighbourhoods in Dublin. Thick-witted Deano rules its streets with his tracksuit-clad boys, squeezing “protection” payments from the local businesses. When Michelle, the owner of Deadly Cuts—the salon where Stacey works with her mates Gemma and Chantelle—refuses to pay, the gang vandalizes the place, sabotaging Stacey’s Ahh Hair! avant-garde entry. To make matters worse, Darren Flynn, Piglinstown’s local councillor, is using the community’s high crime rate to push through a gentrification scheme that would raze the local businesses for new condos and trendy chain shops. However, one fateful night of accidental vigilantism leads to a reinvigorated community that soon rallies around the Deadly Cuts’ bid to win Ahh Hair!. But if Deadly Cuts is to win, they’ll have to takedown Dalton Chadwick, Dublin’s most elite network of hair technicians (with an Instagram following of 1.8 million).