Slamdance ’15: They Look Like People

Who is more delusional, the dude who sees aliens or the compulsively self-helpy would be career-climber? Its close, but we should probably give it to the guy prepping for Armageddon on the basis of a few inexplicable, but admittedly terrifying phone calls. Together, this damaged duo might just have all the problems the world can offer in Perry Blackshear’s impressively grungy, horror-ish They Look Like People, which screens at the 2015 SF Indie Fest after being recognized with the Jury’s Honorable Mention for Dramatic Feature at this year’s Slamdance Film Festival.

Wyatt just sort of turned up in New York, running into Christian, his somewhat estranged childhood friend. Both have been dumped by long-term girlfriends, but each has their own special issues to deal with. Christian struggles to get ahead in his hipster firm, despite his low confidence and self-esteem. He is also very interested in Mara, a fast-tracked colleague, but he has a knack for saying the wrong things to her. As for his unexpected house-guest Wyatt, he hears voices.

Late at night, he gets calls from someone like “Deep Throat” in The X-Files, warning him of an imminent battle with the aliens. So far, he and Christian are okay, but the invaders have infected much of the human race, taking them over, mind and body. Fortunately, Christian’s building has the creepiest looking basement you will ever see, where Wyatt can set up his doomsday workshop.

In a way, Like People is the darker but more grounded flip-side of John Carpenter’s They Live, even echoing the title. Blackshear fully recognizes every shoe the audience expects to drop, but somehow he keeps them all dangling precariously for an awfully long time. Frankly, the film is such a slow (but effective) build, it almost defies genre categorization. It starts with general awkwardness, becoming steadily more awkward, while something seriously ominous percolates in the background. Yet horror fans should take note, the sequences depicting Wyatt’s presumptive mania are absolutely chilling.

Co-producers Macleod Andrews and Evan Dumouchel have the oddest, saddest pseudo-buddy chemistry one can imagine, but it feels very real. Dumouchel is also convincingly uncomfortable putting the moves on Margaret Drake’s Mara, while Andrews goes nuts like a champion. As a bonus, the character of Mara and Drake’s portrayal are a nice departure for the typical victim roles for women in horror movies. Frankly, she is more assertive than either of the guys, which is a source of their angst in the first place.

Director-screenwriter-cinematographer-editor-one-man-band Blackshear maintains a tense vibe and an almost claustrophobic focus on his flawed characters. He inspires a lot of audience wincing, but takes the emotional climax in a direction less traveled in horror films. It is quite a micro-budget accomplishment that was the hit at this year’s Slamdance. Recommended for those who enjoy horror, psychological thrillers, and sinister slacker dramas, They Look Like People screens again this Friday (2/13) and the following Wednesday (2/18) during SF Indie Fest.

Slamdance ’15: Concrete Love

Pritzker Prize winner Gottfried Böhm and his three architect sons might be the world’s preeminent modernists, but the function of many of their buildings is to harken back to the past. With churches, mosques, World War II memorials, and an Egyptology museum to their collective credit, the Böhms have built, but they find themselves at a personal and professional crossroads in Maurizius Staerkle Drux’s documentary, Concrete Love: the Böhm Family (trailer here), which screened during the 2015 Slamdance Film Festival in Park City.

As the only German Pritzker laureate, Gottfried Böhm is the unquestioned head of the clan and of their family practice. His overwhelmingly dominant stature leads to issues and tensions within the family unit, particularly with respect to his wife Elisabeth. She was once a promising junior architect as well, but she permanently deferred her career to raise their children. She has long suffered from dementia when Drux starts observing the family, but she soon succumbs to age and infirmity.

Despite her failing health, the Böhm sons miss their mother’s stabilizing influence. Resentments of the patriarch start to become more pronounced, especially as the sons face their own particular professional challenges. Stephan is determined to get a toehold in the exploding Chinese market, even though he is a bit put off to learn architects are largely considered on par with contractors and workmen in the People’s Republic (arguably, a rare expression of egalitarianism in the increasingly stratified nation). Meanwhile, Paul Böhm is growing exasperated with the budget cuts and aesthetically dubious demands imposed on him by the strange network of patrons behind his mega-mosque project. Believe it or not, we sort of get the sense he is being set up to be some kind of scapegoat.

At least Peter Böhm sort of gets the last laugh at the opening of the Museum of Egyptian Art he designed. He had clashed with his father over its deceptively simple, boxy layout. Yet, once Drux takes his cameras inside, we get a sense of how its imposing massiveness evokes the great monumental structures of ancient Egypt and how the surprisingly airy open spaces serve the exhibitions. It really has a cool sense of place.

Of course, the elder Böhm has plenty of striking buildings to his credit as well. Indeed, seeing the family’s greatest hits is one of the best parts of Concrete. To his credit, Drux has a good eye for both architecture and familial drama. In a case of good news-bad news, his approach is probably too detached to feel voyeuristic or intrusive. As a result though, the pace can be a bit leisurely at times, but the film is clearly intended for a cultured audience with a sustainable attention span. Respectfully recommended for those interested in post-war architecture, Concrete Love will likely screen at many art-focused and German language festivals over the coming year, following its North American premiere at this year’s Slamdance Film Festival.

Slamdance ’15: 20 Years of Madness

In 1988, Mystery Science Theater 3000 debuted on Minnesota’s struggling independent KTMA with little fanfare, but it was just too funny not to go national. High school student Jerry White, Jr. assumed the same was true of his raucous suburban Detroit cable access show, 30 Minutes of Madness (30MOM). You could legitimately debate whether this was true or not, but the fact remains he never received the big league call-up he was hoping for. Twenty years later, White tries to get the gang together to take another shot at it. Jeremy Royce documents the unruly reunion in 20 Years of Madness (trailer here), which won the Jury Honorable Mention for Documentary Feature at the 2015 Slamdance Film Festival.

Based on the generous samplings of weird and wacky clips, the original 30MOM looks like a cross between the slapstick stunts of Jackass and The Kids in the Hall at their most conceptual. Although it was an analogue VHS deal, through and through, White had a facility for pulling off strange visual effects. Perhaps they could have caught on, but like every cult band that didn’t make it big, they imploded from within before they ever got that big break.

Having recently graduated from film school (where he met Royce), White is now at loose ends. Since 30MOM is still his best known calling card, he tries to revive it with his old colleagues. White will more or less admit his runaway ego was most to blame for poisoning the chemistry the first time around. Everyone seems to be willing to make another go of it, but some seem more willing to patch up old resentments than others.

One of the strange things about 20YOM is the way the various players shrink and grow in stature over time. Sometimes White seems to be reverting to his old high-handed ways, but as we listen difficult cast-members whine and play the diva card, it is hard to blame him for telling them where to get off. Happily, he seems be able to permanently repair his friendship with Joe Hornacek, who was probably the second most important 30MOM contributor after White.

It is rather fascinating to see what the motley crew does with their possible second chance. After all, no 30MOM alumnus has exactly set the world on fire. One lost about a decade to heroin addiction, while another struggled with Bi-Polar disorder. At least, White and Hornacek could reconnect for real, which is a rather hopeful development.

At times, White is rather contemptuous of youtube, explaining 30MOM had viewers who made a real time commitment to find and watch their show, rather than net surfers hitting the “like” button. Those who share his affection for the VHS tapes and cable broadcasting of the 1980s and 1990s will get his point. Even if you never saw 30MOM, 20YOM will make you nostalgic for the era that produced it. Who knows, now that Royce’s doc has at least one festival award under its belt, maybe the 30MOM show could see some kind of release on the increasingly obsolete format known as DVDs? Recommended for anyone who still feels more comfortable with old school media (and the grungier the better), 20 Years of Madness screened at this year’s Slamdance Film Festival.

Slamdance ’15: Darkness on the Edge of Town

Young Cleo Callahan might not look like a vigilante, but she has the right skills. She is crack sharpshooter, particularly with a rifle-scope. Arguably, her investigative talents are somewhat subpar, but in such a small provincial village she is bound to find her sister’s killer sooner or later. However, the guilty party is closer than she could imagine in Patrick Ryan’s moody revenge drama Darkness on the Edge of Town (trailer here), which screens during the 2015 Slamdance Film Festival.

Since the death of their parents, Callahan’s relationship with her older sister Aishling has been strained. She now lives with Foster parents, while Aishling lives the wild life—or at least she was. Although we see full well who the killer is, it feels like the sort of thing that should be held close to the vest. Regardless, Cleo Callahan soon sets out to even the score, presuming the murderer is one of the dodgy characters in her sister’s social circle.

Technically, they are innocent, but it is clearly implied they did sister Aishling wrong in more conventional ways, so there is no need to feel sympathy for their sorry hides. However, it is a different story when suspicion falls on Virgil O’Riley, the brother of her profoundly troubled best friend Robin.

The tone of Darkness is so dark, it is like Milton’s darkness visible. You do not want to know what goes on behind closed doors because it is sure to be awful. This is not a wish fulfillment vigilante movie like the later Death Wish films. It is scrupulously serious, even though there is a good deal of blood down the stretch. At times, Ryan plays with the themes and visual language of the western genre, but it is really more closely akin to a film like Heavenly Creatures, but executed in a drastically more naturalistic style.

Be that as it may, Darkness heralds the arrival of Emma Willis as a major new screen talent to watch. Her performance as Robin O’Riley is truly harrowing, riveting, and downright scary. It is bad luck for Emma Eliza Regan, whose intense slow-burning work as Callahan is likely to be overlooked, even though it is excellent as well.

It is hard to classify Darkness as a thriller, because of its deliberate pacing and thoroughly realized sense of hardscrabble place. Still, this film has grit in abundance. Definitely recommended for patrons of Irish cinema and violent contemporary tragedies in general, Darkness on the Edge of Town screens again tomorrow (1/28) at Treasure Mountain Inn, as part of this year’s Slamdance.

Slamdance ’15: Female Pervert

Some things sound sexier in theory than they frequently turn out to be in practice, like Murakami book clubs and dirty talk. Phoebe will learn both these things first hand. She would really like to make a connection, but she is her own worst enemy in Jiyoung Lee’s Female Pervert, which screens during the 2015 Slamdance Film Festival.

Phoebe works for a boutique PR agency and develops video games on the side. She is cute and hip, so you would think she would have no trouble attracting guys, until she starts talking. Frankly, the term pervert might be a bit harsh. It is like she has a form of sexual Tourette’s that compels her to make creepy, mood-killing comments.

Clocking in just over an hour, FP is relatively brief and a tad repetitive, as Phoebe falls into a predictable pattern of initially attracting guys with her idiosyncrasies and then repelling them with her inappropriate weirdness. However, there is a lot of sly satire directed at Nabokov reading pseudo-intellectual hipsters, the shallow feel-good liberal activism of millennials, conspiracy theorists with a religious like faith in cheaply produced documentaries, and organic food eating environmental paranoids. None of them can withstand Phoebe’s caustic attitude.

That necessarily means Jennifer Kim is the key to whether it all works and to what extent. Fortunately, she is absolutely terrific as the exquisitely problematic Phoebe. Her comic timing is pitch perfect and she radiates an eccentric charisma that truly lights up the screen. You cannot help falling for her, despite all the whacked out things she says and does. She somehow conveys a real heart underneath all the acting out, which comes through clearly in Lee’s sweetly subtle closing sequence.

Even knowing full well how much trouble she is, you’d be tempted to try to make something work with Phoebe, which is sort of the acid test for a character like this. While a lot of critics have bought into Desiree Akhavan’s Appropriate Behavior, because it tries to milk some rather gross sexual situations for laughs, it utterly lacks the warmth and vulnerability of the imperfectly titled Female Pervert. Recommended for fans of edgy but still kind of sweet relationship comedies, Female Pervert screens again tomorrow (1/28) at Treasure Mountain Inn, as part of this year’s Slamdance.

Slamdance ’15: Body

It is sort of like an episode of Girls, but with Larry Fessenden. When three former high school friends break into a McMansion for some Christmas Eve partying, they wind up with some explaining to do in Dan Berk & Robert Olsen’s Body (trailer here), which screens during the 2015 Slamdance Film Festival.

Home for the holidays and slightly stoned, Holly, Cali, and Mel are looking for something to do on a cold Christmas Eve. Cali suggests they kick up their heels in her rich uncle’s pad, because he doesn’t mind her having the run of the place. Holly and Mel agree, even though there is something funny about her story (they’re stoned, remember). After a little breaking and entering (seriously, he won’t mind), they start hit the rec room hard. Eventually, Holly has the sense to ask why there are so many pictures of an Asian family on the wall.

It turns out there is no rich uncle. Cali used to babysit for the owners years ago and knew they would be away for the holidays. As this uncomfortable truth sinks in, the girls are surprised by the creepy caretaker. Things get a bit confused, resulting in his apparently fatal accident. With no legal justification for their presence there, the three friends need to get their stories straight, but the circumstances and resulting moral dilemmas keep getting more complicated.

The good news for Larry Fessenden fans is he has a new genre film at Slamdance. The bad news is he spends nearly the entire film flat on his back. Still, let’s just say he has his moments. Nevertheless, the relationship between the three twentysomething women really forms the heart of the film. Berk & Olsen take a fair amount of time to establish their complicated relationships somewhere along the continuum between friends and frienemies. Viewers get the sense they have long histories together and are used to being around each other, even if their feelings are a bit ambiguous. There is also something vicariously enjoyable about watching them run amok in that swanky pad.

Inevitably, matters take a dark turn and get progressively darker, but Body is more closely akin to a claustrophobic stage-thriller than a horror movie. Helen Rogers anchors the film quite effectively as Holly, who passes for the film’s voice of reason and the closest thing it has to a conscience, whereas on the other hand, Alexandra Turshen clearly enjoys getting the film’s best opportunities for scenery chewing and most pointed lines as the mildly sociopathic Cali (hey, nobody’s perfect).

Oddly, Body feels a bit restrained, especially with Fessenden along for the ride, but it vividly captures the weird vibe of being somewhere rather isolated during a time of collective celebration, like the holidays. It is a clever and aesthetically economical dark thriller, recommended for genre fans when it screens again this Thursday (1/29) at Treasure Mountain Inn, as part of this year’s Slamdance.

Slamdance ’15: Ratter

Surely, even the most tenacious cyber-stalker has to go to work or buy groceries sometime. Somehow, the predator tapping into Emma’s life always seems to be watching. That monomaniacal focus makes it is even more unsettling to watch her through his eyes throughout Branden Kramer’s Ratter, which screens during the 2015 Slamdance Film Festival.

Obviously, we cannot see the man who has maliciously hacked Emma’s computer and assorted internet accessing devices, but he did quite a job on her. Through their web-cameras, he (and we) see just about all of her presumptively private moments. She moved to New York following a rough patch back home, but in retrospect, that seems to be a mistake. When she finally realizes she has been hacked, she immediately suspects her still bitter ex, but he seems an unlikely culprit from our perspective. Unfortunately, the cyber harassment dangerously escalates when the unknown perpetrator starts sabotaging her relationships.

Ratter is the sort of film that will scare viewers into moving a good portion of their lives off-line. Like Bobby Boermans’ more conventionally thrillerish App, it makes retro flip phones look like an idea whose time has come again (they make and receive calls, period). Kramer takes some time to set the scene and flesh out Emma’s backstory, but he steadily builds the claustrophobic tension until you want to scream at her: “get out of the apartment.”

Given its online video look and the menacing vibe, Ratter feels somewhat akin to the original V/H/S anthology film. The most notable dissimilarity—and it’s a significant one—is Ratter’s lack of fun.

In a way, Ashley Benson (of Spring Breakers and Pretty Little Liars) is too realistic as Emma. We see her make dozens of mistakes and in just about every unflattering moment imaginable, yet she always seems like a generally decent, somewhat naïve kid. She also develops some surprisingly down-to-earth flirtatious chemistry with her prospective new boyfriend Michael, also nicely played by Matt McGorry. They certainly do not deserve what befalls them.

Kramer exercises commanding control of the film’s twisted mood and psychopathic concentration, while Benson withstands the relentlessly intimate focus remarkably well. However, even mildly sensitive viewers might be disturbed at where it ends up. Recommended for luddites looking for a bitterly black thriller, Ratter screens again this Wednesday (1/28) at Treasure Mountain Inn, as part of this year’s Slamdance.

Slamdance ’15: Clinger

It would be a shame if Fern Petersen’s brief high school romance with Robert Klingher were to hold them both back. In Petersen’s case, she hopes to attend MIT, whereas Klingher needs to move onto the next spiritual plane. Yes, he is dead and not loving it. It is also rather awkward for her too in Michael Steves’ Clinger (trailer here), which screens during the 2015 Slamdance Film Festival.

When Klingher first asks out Petersen, it looks like they have the makings of a cute couple. Unfortunately, Klingher doesn’t know when to crank it down and go with the flow. Exhausted by his over-eager attention, Petersen has resolved to break-up with him, but a mishap with his latest guillotine-like Rube Goldberg love contraption renders the question tragically moot—or so she assumes.

It turns out the decapitated Klingher is not ready to move on. He also wants to keep dating. As her “love ghost,” only Petersen can see Klingher. However, it turns out her mysterious track coach was once an exorcist. She wants no part of Petersen’s paranormal business, but might have some reluctant advice to offer.

Granted, Clinger might not be blazingly original, but it deftly juggles multiple forms of gross-out humor while maintaining a good heart. Perhaps the film’s vibe is best illustrated by Petersen’s best friend, the Evangelical Moe Watkins, who is constantly inadvertently blurting out the raunchiest things in perfect innocence. Yet, the film never feels like an attack on her faith.

Maybe we’re all just getting older here in the Slamdance press corps, but Clinger’s principal cast-members all really do look like high school kids. As Petersen, Jennifer Laporte is appealingly down-to-earth and admirably comfortable with the film’s chaotic style of comedy. Vincent Martella’s Klingher is an appropriately nebbish sad sack, but Shonna Major really shines through as the deliriously sweet-tempered Watkins.

Clinger might not generate the most buzz in Park City, but if you just want some raucous genre laughs, it delivers. In fact, it is quite a welcome palate-cleanser amid all the hype and noise. Affectionately recommended for fans of horror and teen comedies, Clinger screens again this Thursday (1/29) at Treasure Mountain Inn, as part of this year’s Slamdance.