Movie Outlaw: PSYCHOS IN LOVE (1987)

[Reprinted from Hey, Did You Ever See the Movie...?]

Joe owns a bar; Kate is a lonely manicurist. Both long for love, for understanding, but find both difficult to achieve. It makes them angry, frustrated, forlorn. Eventually, their paths cross and it’s love at first sight, particularly because they share one crucial personality trait: they’re both psychopathic murderers. Love, happiness, hilarity and gore ensues.

Over the last twenty-some years, Gorman Bechard’s Psychos in Love has developed a devoted and deserved cult following. It’s a movie that’s incredibly easy to like, despite the outwardly-lurid subject matter. It’s a black comedy, obviously, that owes more than a little debt to Paul Bartel’s Eating Raoul, minus that film’s smugness. But hands down the reason it works is due to the natural chemistry of stars Carmine Capobianco (Land of College Prophets, Everything Moves Alone) and Debi Thibeault. It’s easy to believe that these two star-crossed crazies would fall for each other because, first and foremost, they like each other. Homicidal tendencies aside, they enjoy just hanging out and being silly together, and the non-cynical viewer will enjoy hanging out with them as well. The pair reteamed with Bechard for the additional outings Galactic Gigolo and Cemetery High, but neither of the latter work quite as well or possess the goofy charm of Psychos in Love.  

There’s not a lot of plot to Psychos in Love, and everyone involved has admitted at one point or another that a good deal of the scenes were improvised. Their shared rant “I hate grapes. I hate green grapes. I hate purple grapes. I hate them separately. In bunches and in little groups of twos and threes. I fucking hate grapes,” is often heard chanted by those “in the know” at horror conventions and has almost become the equivalent of the horror fan’s secret handshake (in much the same way as “42” is to science fiction fans). Though the rant itself—one of the pair’s given reasons for their murderous impulses—was a throwaway gag Capobianco and Bechard came up with during the first draft of the script. It’s a meaningless MacGuffin, but it’s still very funny. Joe addresses the audience throughout the film, like a bearded Alvy Singer, and rather than the device feeling forced, Capobianco makes us feel right at home. Like we just dropped in on Joe and Kate for an evening of TV and carnage.

For the longest time, Psychos in Love was such an obscure, underground film, available in only the most out-of-the-way mom-and-pop video stores, that the horror community was literally polarized over the movie’s very existence. It gained a little more credibility in the ‘90s when Caroline in the City’s co-star, Eric Lutes, was outted as the movie’s cannibal plumber that throws a monkey wrench (sorry) into the pair’s murder games. But it took years for it to find its way onto “legitimate” DVD. And for a while there, it was only available as an overseas import. But now it’s officially available and ready for your viewing pleasure.

Now, make no mistake, Psychos in Love was shot on a half-shoestring budget and it shows. The camerawork is rough as is the sound, Capobianco performs the score on a Casio keyboard, and most of the other performers are, well, less than stellar. The gore is fun and the story never gets boring, but if you grew up raised on the flawless offerings of Hollywood, you might not “get” Psychos in Love. And if you’re one of the humorless slugs that slimes the internet message boards, you’ll undoubtedly brand this as “worst movie ever” just moments before declaring something else to be “worst movie ever”. And while it’s said that there’s no such thing as a wrong opinion, it isn’t the case here. If you don’t enjoy Capobianco and Thibeault’s characters in this film, you’re wrong. Plain and simple. Your heart is full of unwashed socks and you have no business calling yourself a movie fan. The slimmest of dimes spent is visible on the screen, but so is every bit of love put in.

[Now, for personal disclosure, I was first exposed to Psychos in Love by my best friend and business partner Bill Homan, who had a third-generation VHS copy that had a unique jump in the middle—one of his roommates had accidentally hit “record” on the remote while watching, thus inserting an animated Sesame Street spider into the midst of the movie. For years, this was the version we watched. Now that it’s available on pristine DVD, I have to admit, I miss the spider just a little.]

HDYEStM...?: THE SPIRIT (1987)

I’m not alone in my flabbergastation that one of the most cinematic comic books ever drawn has never gotten a decent adaptation to screen. In 1987, having grown up on reprints of Will Eisner’s wonderful comic The Spirit (thank you Warren and Kitchen Sink Press), I was pretty excited to see a movie based on the title character. I had high hopes of seeing Eisner’s characters and his noir playground Central City brought to life. I mean, hell, every issue was a storyboard in and of itself! I figured it would be easy to cast and shoot. Even at fourteen, I knew that many early film noir movies invented their “look” out of budgetary concerns—deep shadows covering the edge of a set, the grim look of an urban setting emulating the post-war America, etc.—and even if The Spirit had only a TV movie budget, surely something great would come out of this.

Okay, I was a little concerned that “Bob Boxbody”—aka Sam J. Jones, the furniture-based star of DeLaurentiis’ idiotic Flash Gordon was cast to play Denny Colt / The Spirit, but he might be able to pull off the masked crimefighter okay. After all, Denny is really just an overgrown boy scout in a blue suit. His only superpower is having a head that is harder than the average cinderblock, able to withstand any amount of punishment dished out to him. And Jones seemed pretty solid in terms of cranial density, so my hopes remained high.

And, okay, I knew they were going to throw out his side-kick, Ebony White, a little minstrel-based comic relief character with a Southern Amos ‘n Andy drawl that most found offensive in this newly-minted PC age. Yes, even though Ebony was never treated like a stereotype and was a warmly received character who often took center stage in the stories, white guilt now ruled the entertainment industry. So Ebony would be changed to “Nubbin” or “Willum” or “Sammy” or a score of other, replacement boy sidekicks The Spirit had had from time to time.

And, okay, few women existed in Hollywood at any time since the ‘40s as ridiculously sexy as Eisner’s femme fatales. Even his girl next door, Ellen Dolan, was based on a strange cross between Joan Blondell and Jean Harlow. Again, in the ‘80s, it was bad news to depict women with sex appeal, even if their characters were brilliant and used that sex appeal to get one over on the average dumb male.

And, okay, TV was probably the wrong medium to depict the sheer amount of often scary violence often visited upon The Spirit. He is often beaten nearly to death, shot, stabbed, blinded, defenestrated and otherwise the victim of extreme harm that often lands him in the hospital (one particular instance tells about a normal day of life outside of an urban alley where The Spirit lies wounded and unable to call for help). So most of that would have to be toned down. Gone would be an amazing sequence where The Spirit drags himself painfully across a room to bathe his bleeding head beneath a sink faucet just moments before a thug slams him over the head with a bat—again.

Still at fourteen, cynicism hadn’t quite gotten its hold. So I sat down in eager anticipation and the excitement grew as gorgeous panels of Will’s artwork appeared on screen and quickly dissolved into live-action matches. My God, they were gonna do it! The Spirit! If it took off, it’d get developed into a series. And, and, and…!

Alas, alack and oy. While it starts well with an explosion and a friend of Denny’s giving a last request, The Spirit sets off on a crummy retelling of his origin story—young cop, thought dead, returning as a masked avenger to aid the cops—but makes a mush of it. Gone is Dr. Cobra and his fluid that sends Denny into suspended animation—okay, fine. But why are Denny and Dolan strangers? Why is he a regional cop from something called “Armfeth” (leading to the four-time used joke, “Where’s ‘Armpit’?”)? Why the heck is Ebony now a conning street urchin named “Eubie”, selling stolen tape decks? What the hell is going on with P’Gell? She’s the ultimate Eisner femme fatale, an amoral schemer who uses sex as a weapon, and they cast Laura Robinson to play her? The woman is as exotic as a Yenta buying groceries.

I was so turned off by the movie—the unnecessary Adam West Batman-esque campiness, the bland story, the blah-direction, the bloodless—as in “drained of blood”—action sequences. Jones was fine as Denny, I suppose. He had the upright boy scout thing down and didn’t look overly silly in the ill-fitting Spirit outfit. Nana Visitor (future Star Trek wet dream) was okay as Ellen. I had no idea why they decided to have her friends with internationally-known and intriguing P’Gell, or why, again, they decided to turn P’Gell into a respected community member, but… The whole thing was very off-putting and extremely disappointing. And what was with all the sunlight? Central City looked like Hill Valley in Back to the Future.

The pilot was never picked up and the idea of a series was killed. Some reports say that Eisner himself killed the series, others maintain that the show was too low-rated to warrant continuing. While it is true that Eisner did hate the movie, for precisely the same reasons the rest of us did, it’s unclear whether he pulled the plug himself or not. A moot point, regardless.

Flash forward many years later and we damaged Spirit fans learned just how much love had gone into that original TV movie. In comparison, at least, to the artistic sodomy perpetrated by comic book “genius” and “personal friend” of Eisner’s, the despicable Frank Miller. Compared to Frank’s adaptation of The Spirit, the Stephen DeSouza penned and Michael Schultz-directed TV movie was a loving recreation of the original. Looking back through tear-stained eyes after having witnessed Miller exhuming his “friend” and violating his creation, the ’87 movie actually has a lot going for it.

While most of the decisions made in the TV version were wrong-headed but understandable—updating The Spirit to modern day makes his fedora-and-trench coat fashions pretty ludicrous; recontextualizing the characters and their relationships allowed for development in a later series, and it could be rationalized that the players could explore Central City in future episodes and, perhaps, go deeper into darker Eisner territory. Lack of money made the day-time scenes necessary, fine, fine, fine.

Besides, Schultz had directed Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, so he already had that going against him. The odds were never in his favor.

As thin as DeSouza’s script was, it never once felt irreverent or, compared to Miller’s, blasphemous. DeSouza seemed determined to honor the creator in some way, shape or form. Miller seemed out to avenge some wrongdoing. So many decisions in the modern feature film just seemed spiteful and others seemed downright cruel (Samuel L. Jackson’s portrayal of The Spirit’s villainous nemesis, The Octopus, was never anything less than a kick in the groin to Will and anyone who ever cared for The Spirit. The same is true, but moreso, to Frank making Denny a superhuman with Wolverine-esque healing powers). While Jones is his usual stiff but goofy self as Denny, never once does he brood on a rooftop about how much his “city screams” for him. Maybe the best that can be said about the ’87 Spirit is that it’s never pretentious, and you don’t realize how big a compliment that is until faced with the alternative.

Make no mistake, the ’87 Spirit is not good by any means. But it makes a darned good double-feature with the equally-silly Doc Savage because it was made to be fun. Schultz and DeSouza never tried to “reimagine” Will’s creations, but did their best with what they had to work with. In analysis, it feels more like a fan film than it does a TV movie, but fan films, by definition, are made because a fan loved something.

So if you’re eager to check out this misguided live-action goof-o-rama, it’s easy enough to find on bootleg DVDs and downloads. It’s unlikely that we’ll see an official release of this any time soon, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Again, bootlegs are primarily bought by somebody who loved it. Some amount of fond memory or curiosity drove that fan to either create that bootleg or purchase it. Fan dubs aren’t generally created to “stick it to the man”. So if that rationality works for you, by all means, run down Sam J. Jones as The Spirit. And if you dislike it, pop in Miller’s. You’ll gradually see only goodness and light and puppies in the first one.

HDYEStM: FIGURES IN A LANDSCAPE (1970)

Two prisoners of war, Mac (Robert Shaw) and Ansell (Malcolm MacDowell), have escaped their captors and flee for their lives across an unyielding landscape, encountering terrified villagers and constantly pursued by an ominous black helicopter. Their goals are always immediate: untie their hands, gather food, find shelter, avoid detection, acquire weapons, and always keep moving, towards the border across lies freedom. We learn that they’re British, that Mac was married and has a daughter (who he will never allow Ansell to meet), that the older man sees the younger as both a son and a burden, and that the younger views the older as both protector and a symbol of the “old generation”. But who they actually are, where they are and what war they’re embroiled in—these details are left in the dust. There is only flight and pursuit. Only allegory in place of story.

Which, of course, is both the triumph and ultimate failure of the movie. Based on Barry (Conduct Unbecoming) England’s 1968 debut novel and directed by Joseph Losey, Figures in a Landscape is, for the most part, just what the title describes. Beautiful, sometimes stunning photography (courtesy of directors of photography Peter Suschitzky, Henri Alekan and Guy Tabary) of the two men off in the distance, framed but majestic vistas of mountains, fields, orchards, usually from the point of view of the film’s omniscient helicopter pilot, running for their lives without stopping. The conversations the two share are fascinatingly banal—never their situation, but former careers in the private sector, how they should divide their food to keep a balanced diet, occasionally the difference between war and murder.

Thematically, Mac represents the “working class” Brit while MacDowell represents the new, hip and sophisticated but naïve younger middle class. Both have to work together, of course, and both need each other. But as characters, they don’t amount to much beyond their archetypes. Which is what makes the movie so frustrating. With the viewer kept at a distance—literally and figuratively—from the only characters in the film, the powerful climax comes as little more than just another scene. If they’re meant to be little more than allegory, then how can we sympathize with them? And if they are allegory, what’s the rest of the film—or the landscape, for that matter?—anti-war, anti-invasion? For that matter, Shaw’s (who adapted the novel) spelling out Mac’s and Ansell’s nationalities seems like another misstep, one missing from the source material. Despite being allegorical, the pair is defined as “British”. So now we’re left with another level of distance—nationalism will alienate the non-British. They’re no longer everymen but “Brit Everymen”, and we have to filter a lot of class consideration through their situations, which makes deciphering even more difficult.

By the end of the film, Figures in a Landscape has been a two-hour study of scenery broken up by occasional action set-pieces set inside hostile but unidentifiable compounds and villages. Vincent Canby pointed out in his 1971 New York Times review that the real star of the film is Gilbert Chomat, the helicopter pilot that transforms the machine into a vicious bird of prey, toying with the men on the ground. You can never really watch the movie as a whole, though. If you watch for the action scenes, you’re left with long stretches of Shaw’s bellowing and MacDowell’s petulant posturing. If you watch for the allegory, you’ll spend so much time interpreting the situation that the action will actually seem distracting.

Now, to add even more frustration, if you are still intrigued (because the movie is worth watching despite its faults), Figures in a Landscape is a difficult movie to obtain. An import PAL DVD is available for a relatively princely sum on Amazon, but it hasn’t seen a U.S. release since its brief appearance on VHS many moons ago. Still: best of luck in both the search for the film and its meaning. Let me know what you find.

HYEStM: FAIR GAME (1986)

[Reprinted from Hey, Did You Ever See the Movie...? The most important film blog since Sight and Sound, curiously censored by the government...]

A conservationist on her own in the Outback on a wildlife refuge is harassed by a trio of kangaroo poachers. Their games start simply: shrewd come-ons at a trading post, running her off the road, driving their trucks through her bird sanctuary. Kid stuff, you know? She retaliates one night by sneaking into their camp and welding their rifles together. Of course, she should have known better than to mess about with a man’s gun. Before she (or the viewer) knows what’s happening, they have her stripped to the waist and lashed to the front of one of their trucks as they do doughnuts in the dust.

Now, as the old saying goes, it’s personal. Or, for Jessica (played by Cassandra Delaney, once married to that bastion of manhood, John Denver), it’s war.

Fair Game is a very tense “Oz-ploitation” thriller from the Land Downunder. It has all the trappings of an exploitation flick: skuzzy baddies, gratuitous nudity, nasty motor vehicles and all kinds of laws broken and civility stomped to mush. But this isn’t I Spit On Your Grave. Jessica isn’t victimized for one second, even lashed to the front of that truck. While rape is implied, it isn’t shown and her will is never broken. Naturally, the local law is no help and her husband is away—one of the villains asks her “Where’s your man, Sheila?”—but she never seems to despair. Of course, the audience knows the violence will escalate before she does. She just wants them run in for ‘roo poaching.

Director Mario Andreacchio keeps the action moving and the whole cast does wonders with Rob George’s deceptively simple script. On the whole, it’s really nothing you’ve never seen before, but it’s so well done and Jessica such a cool heroine, it’s hard not to be on the edge of your seat the entire time. The nice thing about her character is while she’s smart, she keeps making the mistake in thinking that somewhere down deep her antagonists are civilized. But they’re as wild as the land they roam and feel that whatever they want is theirs to take. And they really don’t like a woman showing them up. It’s the clearest case of wounded male ego put up on screen in the longest time. That she never gives up drives them utterly mad with testosterone. It makes for both an exciting and vicious ride.

Fair Game is currently available in the U.S. on a no-frills DVD and it’s well-worth checking out, especially for fans of survival horror combined with (on the surface) revenge flicks.

HDYEStM: OPEN SEASON (1974)

[Reprinted from Hey, Did You Ever See the Movie...? The best non-porn blog ever deleted by Blogger.]

Open Season, aka Recon Game. Ken, Greg and Art (Peter Fonda, John Phillip Law and Richard Lynch), best buddies and war vets, spend one weekend per year at their woodland cabin, kicking back, drinking beer and hunting people for sport. This year, a couple sneaking away to have an affair are “invited” by the trio to join them at their retreat. And our three good buddies never lose their smiles, never lose their sense of humor, all the while mentally and emotionally torturing the pair of victims until it’s time for the hunt to begin.

Up until a few weeks ago, I never even knew this movie existed. I stumbled across the title by accident while looking up something else. It was referred to, in an online guide, as “classic ‘70s sleaze” but there’s much more to it than that. Calling it sleaze is too dismissive. There’s a great deal going on in this ostensible umpteenth remake of The Most Dangerous Game. First and foremost is the way the movie takes its time unfolding the plot. It opens strangely—a rape victim is told by a lawyer that her alleged rapists have ironclad alibis, they were never there, she has no proof to back up her claim. The credits roll, we meet Ken, Greg and Art, get to know them, see them with their families, see that they like each other, that others like them. We get to like them (despite they’re being played by Fonda, Law and Lynch). We watch them blow off steam during the first leg of their journey by parlaying with some local gals—not the classiest of moves for the family guys, but not the worst sin for the swingin’ ‘70s. Then comes the roadside abduction, the couple held at gunpoint, the inevitable, vicious hunt. And the trio never changes. They remain the same three guys throughout the whole movie; it’s only our perspective that changes. They delight in the torment. And we’re never told why.

Sure, there are allusions that the Viet Nam war changed them, but what were they before the war that they make a yearly game out of casual murder? For “classic ‘70s sleaze”, it sure raises a lot of questions. But the questions are never really answered, for just as suddenly, the trio find themselves being hunted and shot by another assailant—one they don’t know, one they can’t see. And the parallel to the war is redrawn. And another question raised: why doesn’t the final assailant intervene earlier? Why doesn’t he help the victims? You’re left to draw your own conclusions at the end. One SPOILER: most interestingly, when the final assailant is revealed, and reveals his own motivations, he turns himself in to the authorities—in what seems like an agreed-upon move, considering his personal banter with police—taking responsibility for his actions and not allowing civilization to look the other way. In some prints, this ending is excised, but it is a coda that, instead of feeling “tacked on for the liberals” as one IMDb reviewer put it, adds a sense of dignity and closure to the senselessness of it all.

Directed by Peter Collinson (The Earthling), the script was adapted by David D. Osborn from his own novel (known in some circles as “The All Americans”) and shot with the violence contrasting the beautiful vistas surrounding the cabin. Maybe it wants to be deeper than it really is, but Open Season certainly holds your attention. The three leads are fantastic and they’re supported by the venerable William Holden (in what amounts to an extended cameo, truth be told), so there’s some pedigree here.

This odd, disturbing and satisfying movie is difficult to come by. For all intents and purposes, it’s only officially available in PAL format and hasn’t seen an official release in the U.S. aside from very, very occasional late-night cable runs. It played fairly regularly on Canadian television in the ‘80s, then seemed to just disappear. If you can find an overseas print, apparently there are multiple endings as well—some including the ultimate surrender, some not—so there’s another caveat for you. But if you do get the opportunity to check this one out, do so. I’d be interested in hearing what you think.

NUN OF THAT (2009)

So was it Quentin Tarantino or Stephen Romano that reignited the spark for grindhouse exploitation? While the days of sleazy back-alley theaters and hillbilly-infested drive-ins are long gone, the spirit of low-budget actioners dripping with sex and violence is still very much alive. And while Tarantino and his buddy Rodriguez spents buckets of Weinstein money to make their Death Proof and Planet Terror features look genuinely ill-used, scratched and cobbled-together, the rest of us have been making movies look like that for free.

Then enter Stephen Romano and his runaway hit faux-film history book Shock Festival. A painstakingly documented sortid stories of movies and filmmakers that never existed, complete with beautiful mock posters and lobby art courtesy of the author, Shock Festival grabbed the attention and imagination of countless indies, resulting in a DVD collection of trailers for these fictional movies. And out of that came Richard Griffin’s ode to that bizarre hybrid of crime and fetishism “nunsploitation”—the tongue-in-cheek and terribly cheeky Nun of That.

After novice nun Sister Kelly is expelled from her convent for delivering a beat-down to a perverted priest, she is sumarily attacked by a trio of rapists, which she manages to subdue (i.e. murder horribly), and encounters a trio of gun-toting nuns, who, well, manage to “subdue” her. She is sent to Heaven, which looks like a seedy nun-filled nightclub, where she is serenaded by Jesus Christ himself in a rousing musical number. Christ then informs her that she will be sent back to Earth as an envoy to take down the mob. Faster than you can say, “Sure, why not?” (or as Sister Kelly shrugs, “Okee dokee”), she goes through some quick training with Ghandi and a pair of demon ninjas and is resurrected among the living as the newest member of the Order of the Black Habit. Renamed “Sister Wrath”, she joins “Sister Lust” and “Sister Gluttony” and they go about kicking ass for the Lord. They encounter greaseball goombahs with porno mustaches, pimps, prostitutes and “Viper” Goldstein, master of “Jew Jitsu”. And by this point, things have gotten too silly to be terribly offensive. Gunplay and martial arts ensue. Throwing star yarmulkes are thrown. Vibrators are used for blunt force trauma. Lesbian urges are explored. It’s truly exploitation at it’s finest minus the mean-spiritedness of the genuine article.

Directed by Richard Griffin (Splatter Disco) and written by Griffin and Ted Marr, Nun of That is everything you’d want in a violent sleaze comedy. Kudos to the cast—which includes cameos by both Debbie Rochon and Lloyd Kaufman—and more kudos to Griffin for abstaining from applying digital damage to the beautifully-shot feature. Nun of That captures the feel of the ‘70s without resorting to the gimickry of burns, skips, scratches, etc. One look at a mobster’s John Holmes mustache tells you everything you need to know about the movie’s Neverland time period.

(On a personal note, I have no idea if Griffin suffered through a Catholic childhood—he gets all the lingo correct, but I suspect that if he did, it was a limited exposure. Because no true Catholic harbors sexual nun fantasies. “Nunsploitation” is truly the invention of either the envious Protestants or those utterly warped by Christianity. The real Catholic student knows that those vestments and wimples conceal no human form!)

The Camp Motion Pictures DVD is chock full of extras including the nifty original Nun of That trailer that sparked the project. 

Movie Outlaw: FAKE BLOOD (2007)

I dislike the term “mockumentary” but I want for a better word to describe a piece of fictional non-fiction. If a “mockumentary” is ostensibly a fictional story shot in documentary style, do recreations fall into that category? Or are “mockumentaries” only designated so if they’re funny? I suppose it doesn’t really matter as director Andrew Shearer self-applies the term to his movie Fake Blood, so if he isn’t bothered by the appellation, why should I be?

I still think we need a new term because of the prefix “mock”. Fake Blood never mocks its subject, despite the inherent humor.

Anyhoo… brother and sister act Edward and Meredith Benjamin have always wanted to make their own movie. Something with “tits and blood and blood all over tits,” is Meredith’s dream. And she just happens to find an old script of her brother’s entitled “Bikini Blood Suckers”. Although with a title like that, who needs a script? Edward’s pregnant wife Cathy isn’t thrilled with the idea, but once Edward decides to go ahead with the project she becomes grudgingly supportive. Things go too smoothly at first—his friend Jen has a Hi-8 video camera (“what distributors want”) and they get an email from a big soap opera star who wants to make the transition into horror. Veronica Weaver comes off as a consummate professional, thinks the material is daring and can’t wait to dive in. After a series of disasterous audition tapes arrive and their choice of co-star O.D.s while “celebrating” her good fortune, Ed has no choice but to put his effects-loving sister into the role of lesbian vampire. Well, he has no choice because Cathy won’t give him one. “You’re going to finish this movie,” she says, and it’s not just the hormones talking.

And before you can say “cursed production”, all sorts of wrong starts to go. Veronica’s professional veneer starts to slip, then peel, then shatter—a “nudity” clause in her contract is evoked at every turn and “nudity” becomes a term with a very loose definition. Jen’s absence from one crucial shoot means replacing her at the last minute with Cousin Bob, a pro cameraman with 86 movies under his belt this year. Okay, they’re all porn films but still… A fake fang is swallowed. Meredith is so rattled about acting she forgets to mix up the blood. And Veronica continues to get crazier. That Cathy sees right through her from the start and won’t take any shit from her at all doesn’t ease Ed’s pain in the slightest. But it’s all for the good of the movie. Or whatever it is they’re all trying to make.

Andrew Shearer and his Gonzoriffic team always seem to fly under the critical radar with their off-beat horror comedies, so if this one has passed you by, don’t beat yourself up. Just head over to gonzoriffic.com and pick it up because if you’re an indie filmmaker yourself, this movie has “you” stamped all over it. Everyone who has ever shot—or attempted to shoot—a movie with limited resources will feel Ed’s pain. And you’ll smile with unashamed schadenfreude, thanking god that it isn’t you suffering through any of this.

95% of Fake Blood feels 100% genuine thanks to unforced performances from Monica Puller (as Meredith), Mitsu Bitchi (as Veronica), Cara Lott (as Cathy), Countess Samela (as Jen) and Shearer himself as Ed. As a production family having worked together for many years, they’re all completely comfortable with each other, which makes for a relaxed atmosphere in which to fein uncomfortabilty. That all scenes were improvised is even more impressive. Any uncomfortable pauses or lapses were undoubtedly edited out by Shearer’s merciless cutting and the pacing feels sharp without feeling rushed (though the tail end of some scenes do feel clipped). But it’s the verity of the film, and the sincerity that runs throughout, that keeps you glued to the scene. That and the amazement you’ll feel at Veronica’s behavior, even when you see each demand coming. 

Pick it up at www.gonzoriffic.com