Balderson at the Arena: Firecracker

Maybe it is for the best, but the younger generations coming up today will probably never experience a carnival sideshow in the flesh, so to speak. They might be exploitative and generally problematic, but they remain one of the darkest, most voyeuristically intriguing corners of Americana. So many cultural references will become obscure as they recede from the collective memory, but at least the geeks and freaks get one last hurrah in Steve Balderson’s true crime-inspired Firecracker (trailer here), which has a special revival screening the weekend at Arena Cinema to help celebrate the release of his latest film.

Every year the carnival comes to Wamego, Kansas. In the fifties, it provided a spot of excitement for the sleepy prairie town, especially the exotic dancers. Usually, the clean cut looking but mean-as-a-snake David White manages to secure some alone time with Miss Sandra, but she is finally fed up with his abusive behavior. She already gets plenty of that from her violently jealous lover, Frank Shehi, the carnival owner. This year, White’s long-suffering seventeen-year-old brother Jimmy also sees Miss Sandra’s act and duly becomes obsessed as well. Unlike his pseudo-rivals, Jimmy’s earnestness rather touches the burlesque dancer’s heart, so she will offer him some Mae West-ish words of wisdom, before shoeing him away for his own protection.

Obviously, three potential suitors make for bad company, but it will be David White who apparently disappears. However, the lack of concern displayed by Jimmy White and his devout but passive mother Eleanor stalls Sheriff Edith “Ed” Carlisle investigation.

Firecracker was shot on location in Balderson’s hometown of Wamego, where a David White really was murdered in the 1950s, including the very house where it happened. Balderson also features real life side show employees, but most of them are just there to provide color and bring out the uglier attitudes of the townsfolk. This is far from a post-millennial Freaks, but Balderson has plenty more for viewers to gawk at, including two leads cast in dual roles.

That would be Karen Black (Great Gatsby, Easy Rider) as Miss Sandra and Mother White, opposite Mike Patton as her two unwanted lovers, Shehi and the senior White brother. It is weird, but there is method to Balderson’s madness. Both pull out all the stops, as befits a deliberately over-heated, tripped-out noir melodrama. Consequently, sulky Jak Kendall’s introverted Jimmy is almost entirely overwhelmed by the two playing four. Yet, Susan Traylor still carves out a memorable niche as the soft-spoken but down-to-business Sheriff Ed.

Firecracker has its rough-edges (some of the attempts to mix black-and-white cinematography with symbolically significant flashes of color look like they were executed on the cheap), but its atmosphere is compellingly evocative. It brings viewers back to a time before the mainstream media homogenized pop culture and the social justice warriors started enforcing their puritanism of victimhood, when average Americans could personally experience the macabre. Basically, Balderson revels in the luridness of the tale, but he makes that work. Recommended for fans of idiosyncratic indie oddities, Firecracker screens this Saturday (9/10) at the Arena Cinema in Hollywood and is also available on VOD via Vimeo.

Hell Town: Soap and Gore

Kids grow up fast in Old Town Hell Town. They have to, given the psycho slasher stalking the halls of their high school. It seems to be working, since they all look way too old to be teens. Presumably, that is all part of the joke in Steve Balderson & Elizabeth Spear’s Hell Town (trailer here), presented Elvira-style by Debbie Rochon, which releases today on VOD.

According to Rochon’s vampy intro, we are about to see the only three surviving episodes of the notorious television show, Hell Town. Think of it as Halloween’s Michael Myers comes to Peyton Place. Butch Manley has just returned home from a stretch in Juvy to find his catatonic mother on death’s door, so from a census-taking perspective, it is essentially a wash.

His wannabe debutante sister Chanel bitterly resents all the adulation heaped on her wealthy rival, Trish Gamble, whose virginity their dumb jock brother Blaze is scheduled to take (for the second time) at the upcoming prom. Their other dumb jock brother Jesse is busy pretending he isn’t gay, especially when Trish’s out-of-the-closet younger brother Bobby is around. He doesn’t really mind Trish’s diva behavior, but Laura Gable, the attention-starved middle sister with daddy issues is a different story. She is the Darren Stephens of Hell Town, played by BeckiJo Neill in the first episode (supposedly S2 E7) and by Jennifer Grace in the subsequent two. Confused? Probably not sufficiently so.

Reportedly inspired by the big Moldovan gun-down episode of Dynasty, Hell Town has an amusing premise, but Balderson, Spear, and their co-screenwriters never take it beyond the level of blood-splattered farce. It has the ring and vibe of a tragically polite John Waters movie. Frankly, the stakes have risen drastically for horror comedy in the wake of legitimately funny and macabre genre productions like The Final Girls, They’re Watching, Ava’s Possessions, Witching & Bitching, You’re Killing Me, and to a lesser extent, The Girl in the Photographs, all of which are much funnier and most are considerably scarier.

Still, you cannot fault Balderson for not getting his at-bats in. Hell Town is one of four films he has in varying states of release over a three or four-week period in late August and early September, including the AXS original film, Elvis Lives. In some ways, H-Town has the feel of a stage farce (albeit one with gallons of stage blood), employing many of his regular repertory players, such as burlesque dancer Pleasant Gehman as Mother Manly and her nurse. Maybe that comfort level is a drawback in this case. On a basic level, Balderson & Spear do what they need to do to satisfy undemanding fans of gore and broad comedy, but that is as far as it goes. Mildly diverting but not nearly as clever as it should have been, Hell Town releases today (8/23) on VOD.