This blog got me into a double feature of low-budget indie horror
movie premieres last night. Usually, this would have to do with access or diligence or making a name for oneself; in
my case, it's because the "edit site" feature for this dumb thing exists as a pop-up on Verizon Central, which means
turning off my blocker and then forgetting to turn it back on before navigating over to Fangoria.com. Finally clicked
on the ad for the screening just to make it shut up.
Anyway, so I go to this thing, right? And here's why
I'll never live too far from NYC: even the girls at a double feature of low-budget
indie horror movie premieres are hot. How hot does your female population have to be...
Malevolence director Steven Mena's follow-up
Brutal Massacre--an affectionate documomedy about low-budget filmmaking, and I still can't get over what a ballsy
switch-up that is for a sophomore effort--is easy to sit through but almost
impossible to enjoy. Everything that happens onscreen invites you to second-guess, a shame considering the wonderful
raw material they're working with, but you can amuse yourself for hours on end thinking up ways to fix it..
It's either too broad or not broad enough--as a verite enthusiast
I lean toward the former, but honestly, taking it decisively in either direction would have served Mena better--and it features
a "walking around with a troubled expression" montage with a sad piano score in the middle of the 3rd act that seems
to be meant in earnest, so, I mean, c'mon.
The big selling point among horror dorks is the triumphant return
to the genre, in a bank-shot kinda way, of David "American Werewolf in the Sleeping Car" Naughton. He's still got that X-factor
they call "likeability" but I'm afraid his chops didn't make it out of the 80s intact. Still, he's better than his surroundings
for the most part, and you really do like the schmoe he plays, more because of his big, open face than because of anything
Mena did.
Another thing Mena didn't do was cast good actors to play the bad actors in the movie-within-the-movie.
He just cast bad actors. Maybe he was going for something, but when the characters aren't acting in their movie WHOA
SO META which is the majority of their screen time, the effect is very boy-this-scene-sure-did-jacknife-like-a-semi.
Dear makers of low-budget indies::
TELL YOUR ACTORS NOT TO USE THEIR FUCKING HANDS SO MUCH. FOR IT IS VERY DISTRACTING.
Almost every clever exchange--and there are many--is ruined by excessive gesticulation.
It's like being backstage at a shadow-puppet show. Look, it's not their fault, most of 'em; they haven't learned yet how much
of the burden the camera carries. That's why it's left to you, the director, to either insist that they keep the indicating
to a minimum or to assign them an onscreen task.
Oh, and also? IF A CHARACTER SMOKES, EITHER CAST A SMOKER OR HAVE THE CHARACTER NOT SMOKE.
That doesn't happen in Brutal Massacre, it's just been stuck in my craw for a
while.
Anyway, glad I could give you this chance to live vicariously through a big-time horror
blogger who gets into premieres. The guy from Brutal Massacre who was also in Clerks totally brushed past
me on his way out. No shit.
By the way, when the guy from Clerks has one of the more naturalistic presences...
ah, hell, I'll stop beating on it.now. I did have fun, and a lot of the jokes landed, and who am I anyway, and why
don't I try to make a fucking movie sometime?
I'll get back to you on the second feature of the evening,
Grace Lee's American Zombie, once I've turned it over in my head some more. I'm leaning toward "flawed masterpiece,"
but that goes against my bone-deep conviction that Shaun pretty much closed the book on undead cinema. That's one of my most strongly-held convictions, come to think of it. I'm not proud.
Plus, I should probably watch Romero's Diary before I write anything. I got this
hypothesis sez American Zombie is an unintentional rebuke. Care to see the evidence I've marshalled? Watch this space!*
*we do not endorse the watching of this space
