Saturday, December 21, 2013

Jason goes to Holehead--Day 17

I actually skipped day 16 (Saturday, Dec. 14th) because that was the day for me an my roommates to host our holiday party. Good times, and then on Sunday I dragged my hungover self up to the New People Center in Japantown for 4 more shows.

First up was shorts block #2:
THE HEART THAT TOLD TOO MUCH: Longtime Holehead favorites Vigor Mortis (MORGUE STORY, NERVO CRANIO ZERO) present their short film faux-documentary take on Edgar Allan Poe's famous Tell-Tale Heart. Pretty fantastic.
EDWARD LEE'S THE BIGHEAD: This short is kind of practice/audition reel for a planned feature-length version of the cult horror novel (which I haven't read.) Rednecks, misogyny, a butt-kicking priest, and a Bighead monster who...doesn't do anything in this short. But presumably will in the featre.
TERRITORIAL: A very unusual (and very funny) home invasion.
AX: A man who has just committed the unthinkable struggles with his guilt. Do axes kill people, or do people with axes kill people?
YOU SHOULD STOP: A woman gets a text she doesn't understand. That leads to a psychic and a life lesson. Or not.
THE COLLECTOR: An animated short about a girl, a forest, a monster, and changing your head.
DEAD VOTES SOCIETY: Arizona politics (and politics in general) is roundly mocked in this story about zombie (or undead-American) suffrage.
LEVELED: A documentary meditation on death, told through the eyes of a cemetery worker.
BABYSITTING: And because a couple of shorts were missing, we got a bonus showing of this hit from the previous shorts block. Creepy silent French kids who kill their babysitter and all her friends.

BLACK SUGAR and THE TOWN THAT CHRISTMAS FORGOT were on the schedule, but didn't play. I don't know why.

Then the next show was the torture comedy TRUTH OR DARE. A group of friends play Truth or Dare with some pretty dangerous dares--like playing Russian Roulette. And they become an online video sensation as the Truth or Daredevils. Of course, their videos are faked (the guy who supposedly died in the opening scenes is shortly revealed to be alive all along.) So their number 1 fan decides he has to become part of the team, and make the game real. And so some deliciously appropriate torture ensues. But while the dare-torture of is good (cutting off nipples, playing William Tell, and...worse) the truth aspect is even better. Revelations of child molestation, rape, incest, and more. Enough to make everyone unlikable enough that you kind of want them to be tortured to death. So the torture is emotionally satisfying and very well done. And that makes the movie a heck of a lot of fun.

Next up was LOLA ROCK 'N' ROLLA'S LEZ-PLOITATION, a collection of no-budget shorts from Lola Rock 'n' Rolla, who is billed as New York City's answer to John Waters. Except that even in his earliest, trashiest work Waters didn't make anything this bad. I don't know, perhaps in the right context this could have been fun, but it just seemed out of place at this festival.
DRAGZILLA: A drag queen can't get her makeup right, and when she experiments she becomes gigantic and wrecks the city.
NIGHT OF THE LIVING GAY: Gay zombies are taking over, making all of New York gay...and zombies, I guess, but gay is more important.
I WAS A TRANNIE WEREWOLF: A high school girl starts growing body hair. Her classmates make fun of her. She gets the last laugh.
BRUNCH: A hip brunch party, with bonus cannibalism!
NEFER-TITTY: Blacksploitation...with titties. And the World Famous BOB as the Albino Queen from Aberdeen.

And finally, we ended the night with an action-horror-comedy ZOMBIE HUNTER. Drugs turn people into zombies. In the post-apocalyptic world one hero hunts and kills as many zombies as possible. He kicks ass, takes names, and meets Danny Trejo. 'nuff said, right? I don't have a lot to say about it, it's just high-energy kick-ass action the whole damn time.

Total Running Time: 385 minutes
My Total Minutes: 346,853

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