Abortion.
Psycho villains with Down Syndrome. Frankly, the only thing missing in Craig
Anderson’s Red Christmas is a musical
number for Adolf Hitler. Believe it or not, this was a hard film for the
first-time Australian director to make. As you might expect, the
behind-the-scenes mayhem is more entertaining than the heavy-handed gore fest
on-screen. Even viewers who had no patience with the resulting film will be
transfixed train-wreck style by Gary Doust’s Horror Movie: A Low Budget Nightmare (trailer here), which screens
during the 2018 Kew Gardens Festival of Cinema.
The
Anderson Doust captures on film is such an earnest, likable chap, who has so
much adversity thrown at him, we feel rather bad about panning Red Christmas back to the Stone Age, but
its just bad, dude. Regardless, the blood, sweat, tears, and toil that went
into its making were absolutely epic. Anderson dedicates every cent he has to
the production, yet he is still short about one-hundred grand Australian a week
before shooting starts. On the plus side, he has Dee Wallace from Cujo and The Howling signed as his lead—or so he thinks. It turns out SAG-AFTA
will brazenly demand a pay-off before sanctioning her appearance.
That
is before Anderson even starts rolling, which starts off disastrously.
Nevertheless, Anderson is such a deer-in-the-headlights underdog, the cast and
crew gamely rally behind him. It is downright inspiring to see the film come
together, albeit in a somewhat perverse way, given how terrible it is. The [mis]adventures
naturally continue through post, but at this point, Doust’s doc becomes a
rather instructive lesson in how to secure distribution for a genre film.
Watching
Horror Movie after Red Christmas is indeed a weird
experience. You have to respect Anderson’s scrappiness and his friendship with
a featured actor who really has Down Syndrome in real-life is genuinely
endearing. Fans will also be happy to see Wallace comes across as quite a jolly
good sport, who pushes Anderson to make a better film, in the right,
non-diva-ish kind of way.
Presumably,
you can enjoy Horror Movie without
having seen Red Christmas first. At
least, that is what we strongly suggest. After all, you don’t need to see Coven to understand American Movie, which is a rather apt comparison film. Recommended
for cult movie fans, Horror Movie screens
this Sunday (8/5), as part of the Kew Gardens Festival of Cinema.
