Kipling
would be proud of Jenny the barmaid. Let’s just say she is keeping her head
while others lose theirs. Of course, she is the reason why, but you still have
to give credit where its due. She will take (drastic) proactive steps for a
little companionship in Rebekah Fieschi’s ultra-stylish short film homage to
1930s and 1940s black-and-white horror, Maivaises
Têtes (Bad Heads) (trailer
here),
which screens during the 2017 Comic-Con Independent Film Festival.
Right
from the start, Fieschi does it old school, with the ambiguously Euro host
warning us we’d better leave now if we are not hearty enough to handle the
terrors to come, because the management will not be responsible for our feeble
constitutions. Surely, Bill Castle approves. Then we meet Jenny, a sensitive
daydreamer, but with an aura of darkness about her. She has an active fantasy life,
but she finally wants a man of her own, so she goes to a place where there are
a bunch of men just lying around unused.
Maivaises Têtes looks amazing in
every way, most definitely including Dominick Sivilli’s wonderfully eerie and nostalgic
black-and-white cinematography, as well as the carefully crafted art direction
and set design, down to the spot-on title treatment. When watching Fieschi’s
film, Universal fans will almost expect to see the phrase “a good cast is worth
repeating” pop up at the end.
The
ensemble is indeed repeatable and also appropriately in the spirit. As Jenny,
Alice Dessuant is disarmingly earnest yet wildly and conspicuously off. Diako
Diakoff hits the right note of faux serious scenery chewing as the host, while
also gamely going through the paces as one of Jenny’s fantasy men.
