Thursday, June 9, 2011

Jason goes to Holehead--Day 6

After skipping days 4 and 5, I was back Wednesday night. Here we go.

First up, the short ONE SMALL STEP: The story of the moon rocks who weren't brought back to earth after the Eagle landed.

And that, despite having no connection beyond being Australian, was the lead-in to the feature BAD BEHAVIOUR. This is one of two films I brought to Holehead from Cinequest, so I'm a bit biased, but lets take a look at what I said back then:
And then, after just a couple of drinks at the meetup, I was back for the midnight film BAD BEHAVIOUR. That extra U in "Behavior" is for "Uuuhhh...we're Australians!" It starts off fast, with the psycho brother-sister team Emma and Peterson killing a poor tourist for no apparent reason other than he's French (okay, not a bad reason). They're cutting a swath of murder across Australia, and they end up in the small town of Cecil Bay. But before we get to that inevitable mayhem, we meet some of the residents of the town, who are all engaging in more or less bad behavior of their own. There's a wife cheating on her husband (with her boss), there's a husband kidnapping his wife's lover, and there's a party full of drunken teenagers who break into the neighbors house looking for more booze. There's a lot of build up, followed by buckets and buckets of blood. Awesome. It's also done a PULP FICTION-esque non-linear timeline, that totally works. But seeing it at midnight when I was exhausted means I'll probably have to see it again in order to really get all of it. Maybe I can convince the guys at SF Indiefest's Another Hole in the Head to play it this summer.
Holy crap, I was prescient, I did get Holehead to play it! And I can now say that it's even better when you don't nod off for bits of it!

Okay, the second show started with the short 52 TAKES OF THE SAME THING, THEN BOOBS, by Indiefest alum and Dirty Little Shorts filmmaker T. Arthur Cottam (BEER GOGGLES, PORNOGRAPHIC APATHETIC). Just remember, the most important aspect in filmmaking is a good story.

And speaking of a good story, the feature A CADAVER CHRISTMAS had that, plus a silly, bloody sense of humor that tickled me just right. It's an old school homage to early Sam Raimi splatstick comedies (even including the Delta 88 and an Evil Dead poster). Set sometime in the past in small town America (aren't the best horror films in small towns), before cell phones, after 911 was implemented (that's right you kids, when I was really, really little you had to memorize the local police, fire, etc. numbers. 911 was implemented in my hometown when I was in grade school), when rotary phones still existed (that's right kids, there was a thing called rotary phones and...never mind. And get off my lawn!) Anyway, we're in a bar on Christmas Eve. No one there but the bartender and the miserable town drunk (bartender's keeping tabs on him to prevent his annual Christmas Eve suicide attempt). Suddenly, a guy in a janitor's overalls and covered in blood walks in, uses the bathroom to clean up a bit (not enough), sits down for a beer, and starts telling a wild story about zombies...no, cadavers...that are walking around the university where he works. Enter a cop and his goat-f**king perp. And against all better judgement they go back to the university to check things out. And lots of bloody, funny, hijinx ensue. The end. Awesome!

Total Running Time: 184 minutes
My Total Minutes: 238,647

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