Dead Media: A Blast from the Late 1990s

Usually, horror movies appeal to fans’ nostalgia for the good old days of VHS video stores. This one appeals to our fond memories of the archaic format once known as a DVD. Seriously. VHS still has more personality as an object, but at least a DVD is something evil entities can work with, unlike an impersonal and intangible streaming file. In this case, all kinds of horrors were hardcoded onto a notoriously scarce DVD in director-screenwriter Joseph Scrimshaw’s Dead Media, which opens tomorrow in select theaters.

Maggie Sloke and her housemates can’t decide what movie to stream, until she scrolls over to Rita Nast’s notorious film-within-the-film, Night of the Lurchers. It was always her 90’s-loving Uncle Hep’s favorite. Hep is kind of like her Uncle Buck. Even though he is annoying (especially to her housemate and possible romantic interest, Brenda), Hep was there for her when she needed him, so she remains loyal. Naturally, she texts him and just as predictably, he rushes over with the DVD, so they can enjoy the bonus content as well.

In this case, the extras really are something, especially the easter egg Maggie finds. Suddenly, it pulls Sloke, her uncle, and her housemates into the DVD. Each door in the house now leads to either a chapter of the movie or the bonus content. Ominously, they never know what scene they will enter, because the disk is randomizing.

Fortunately, Nast, the director, can sort of explain the “rules” of the situation. She too was swept up into the DVD during the mastering process. Arguably, it was sort of her fault. During the filming, she accidentally summoned the Lurchers, a strange Scandinavian supernatural variation on the Living Dead. She managed to bind them into the DVD, but now they are all stuck inside with them, along with the actors and the characters they play.

With all the door slamming that ensues, Dead Media takes on a screwball farcical tone, which is really quite amusing. This is definitely the best horror homage to physical media since Beyond the Gates. There is gore, but it is relatively light by genre standards. Nevertheless, Scrimshaw always keeps things sufficiently creepy and unpredictable.

Slamdance ’17: Dave Made a Maze

You could almost appreciate it as a masterwork of outsider art, if it were not so lethal. Rather, inconveniently, it happens to be right smack dab in the middle of Dave and Annie’s living room. When the latter returns from a business trip, she discovers the former has been lost inside for three days. She and an oddball group of friends discover it is bizarrely cavernous inside, sort of like the Tardis, but with booby traps. DIY constructionism takes a weirdly fantastical turn in Bill Watterson’s Dave Built a Maze (trailer here), which premiered during the 2017 Slamdance Film Festival.

Don’t call it a maze—it’s a labyrinth. Hence, there must be traps and yes, a minotaur. Dave did not create those per se. His cardboard Escher-like construction just took on a life of its own. Much to Annie’s frustration, he will not let her simply cut into it. He has too much pride in his creation. It could also be catastrophically dangerous given the structure’s instability. The exasperated Annie calls in his friend Gordon as back-up. Unfortunately, the scene soon turns into a circus. Eventually, she just heads into its cave like entrance, with whoever cares to tag along. However, things get real in a hurry when several of their more expendable friends are quickly killed off.

It is hard to fairly convey a sense of the film’s tone. You would never call it cutesy or quirky, nor is it dark or moody. One might start with Michel Gondry and Edgar Wright as reference points, but they are still not quite right. Regardless, Maze is wildly inventive and slyly funny, featuring some absolutely incredible cardboard set designs. Production designers Trisha Gum and John Sumner, along with art director Jeff White deserve standing ovations for what they have realized (presumably on a not-so extravagant budget).

There is also plenty of snappy, archly sarcastic dialogue, delivered with pitch-perfect aplomb by Adam Busch and James Urbaniuk (a.k.a. Ned Rifle), as Gordon and Harry the aspiring documentarian, respectively. Nick Thune’s titular Dave is necessarily a bit off a sad sack, but Meera Rohit Kumbhani’s Annie just lights up the screen with her smart, grounded, star-making presence.

Frankly, it is kind of shocking how well Maze works. There is nothing twee about it, especially not the tripped-out animated sequences. It is all kind of nuts, but it adheres to its own system of illogic. Very highly recommended for cult film fans, Dave Made a Maze screens again tomorrow (1/23), as part of this year’s Slamdance in Park City.

Ned Rifle: The Grim Family Endures

In 1998, people still talked about independent filmmaking as a movement, while keeping a straight face. You could also get away with characters named “Henry Fool” and “Simon Grim” without being dismissed for clumsy pretension. It was therefore the perfect time to release Hal Hartley’s Henry Fool, which remains his biggest hit to date. The dramedic fable hardly seemed to lend itself to a sequel treatment, yet Hartley delivered Fay Grim anyway. The Grim family is now a full-fledged franchise, with Hartley’s third installment, Ned Rifle (trailer here) opening this Wednesday in New York.

If you remember the first Fool, but skipped the second Grim, you are not alone. Apparently, at the end of her eponymous film, Fay Grim was unjustly convicted of terrorism and her son, Ned Rifle as he is now known, went into witness relocation. Needless to say, this fine state of affairs is all the fault of her husband, Rifle’s father, the jerkweed literary poseur and degenerate drunkard Henry Fool. After seven years, Rifle is finally allowed to see his mother. Aging out of witness protection, he will soon leave Rev. Daniel Gardner’s family to set out on his own. His plan is simple. Kill Henry Fool for ruining his mother’s life.

This would seem run somewhat counter to the Christian faith Rifle adopted under Rev. Gardner’s tutelage, but sometimes a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do. To find Fool, Rifle will drop in on his uncle, Nobel Prize winning poet Simon Grim. That is how he crosses paths with Susan Weber, a graduate student sort of stalking Grim. However, as Weber attaches herself to Rifle, it becomes clear she has her own mysterious reasons for wanting to track down Fool.

Despite Rifle’s rather problematic mission, Hartley treats his Evangelical faith rather respectfully. It is very clear he and Rev. Gardner are flawed, but we are supposed to consider them basically good people nonetheless. Fool on the other hand, remains an intentionally Mephistolean figure, as well as an annoying blowhard. Again, there is something hugely compelling about Simon Grim’s idiosyncratically humanistic perspective, but Hartley shortchanges him on screen time this go round.

Nevertheless, it is impossible to take one’s eyes off James Urbaniak when he is on screen. He continues to deepen Grim’s cynical but forgiving everyman persona. Martin Donovan is suitably earnest as Rev. Gardner, while Thomas Jay Ryan continues to be wildly obnoxious and somewhat menacing as Fool. Parker Posey makes the most of her limited scenes, playing Fay Grim like a jailhouse Norma Desmond. However, Aiken (who has played Rifle since he was a mere lad of seven years) grows into the neurotic lead role quite nicely. He also develops some appealingly off-kilter chemistry with series newcomer Aubrey Plaza, who manages to be simultaneously awkward and sultry as Weber.

The problem with the misconceived war-on-terror middle film is that the Grim family is now stuck with a lot of clunky mythology. Hartley does his best to minimize it, reaching back to a scandal furtively referenced in the first film for the film’s big shocking reveal. It all works better than you might expect, even though the characters all seem slightly embarrassed by their continuing longevity. After all, Henry Fool was the sort of you want to seal into a climate controlled vault, lest it be contaminated by a stray ironic remark from outside its ecosystem.

Although billed as the final chapter, if there is a fourth film, it has to focus on Urbaniak again and be called Simon Grim. Of course, we have to deal with what we have before us—Ned Rifle, which manages to get into your head thanks to some eccentric but forceful performances and Hartley’s soothing electric soundtrack. Recommended for fans of Hartley and Plaza, Ned Rifle opens this Wednesday (4/1) at the IFC Center, in New York.