Day 3 of FANTASTIC FEST 2014 had me missing the first two film showings of the Day so I could go over to MONDOCON to catch up with some of my favorite artists… Folks like William Stout, Bernie Wrightson, Mike Mignola, BASIL GOGOS, Bryan Lee O’Malley, Geof Darrow and a ton of the great Mondo artists and more! Loved getting to meet the FRIGHT RAGS guys (Boy they have a killer TERMINATOR goodie coming up they had on display!). Also – just walking around chatting with his fellow artists was my dear friend and fellow fantastic artist Kerry Gammill, who has worked on tons of films, comics & is one of the best MONSTER KIDS you’ll ever meet. Shame he didn’t have a table so fans could worship proper.
I bought a couple pieces from William Stout… I simply could not resist a MONOLITH MONSTERS piece he had done – and when I was a child, my first full over the head monster mask was given to me by my Dad, and it was one from his childhood. Mr Hyde from ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET DR. JEKYLL & MR. HYDE!!! Loved that mask – and I still have it. I love that it links both my father & mine’s childhood love of classic monsters! That said, Stout had a great drawing of the character and I had to score it for Pops!
Then… Val Mayerik did… a sketch… He asked me what I wanted… My brain raced… then my mouth was heard to utter… Howard and Beverly (go to bed attire) on a couch snacking on popcorn and looking out at us. Where that notion came from? This is how it came out:
After that – Father Geek and I had to rush like the wind to make our first film of the day at FANTASTIC FEST Day 3! As we pulled into the garage, we realized that Yoko and us had arrived at the exact same time! Dad had to rush to his first film, as we had different schedules today. So we chatted with attendees and when our Boarding group was called we wandered on in to the screening of:
FELT
Now, yesterday this pair of really snappily dressed folks approached me – and we took a photo – as we parted they gave me a business card for IFeltYourPenis.Com (FYI that link is very very NSFW btw) This girl Amy that I was meeting makes custom Felt Penises based upon YOUR Penis – and I have to admit, I then assumed this movie would be a documentary about her PENIS Felting empire – and… ya know, I thought that was kinda fucking amazing. We live in a world where you can have your penis reproduced in felt form.
That said… that wasn’t at all what the movie was. First – it isn’t a documentary, it is an amazing narrative film where Amy Everson (the penis felter) acts for her first time in a movie by Jason Banker. He directed the film TOAD ROAD, which was pretty damn good. The film was being introduced by Todd Brown, which is always a great sign. He was declaring this film one of the great surprises for him this year. He absolutely wasn’t tracking the film. This was a shoestring production, but don’t let that fool you – this is one of the very best and most involving films I’ve seen this year.
First off, the very shy seeming Amy Everson creates a stunning portrait of a woman at odds with the life she’s living. Something tragic has occurred to her, but we don’t know exactly what that was. She’s got girlfriends that worry about her, but really… she’s in her own head space. She’s an artist, working out the weight on her soul by making costumes and other objects… yes, like a felt penis, but there’s more things of felt than penises here. There’s a classic little scene where she’s taken Kentucker Audley to her place for the first time and is showing him her life. She’s painted the ceiling sky blue, so it’s always a beautiful sky in her room. One of the first creations she showed off was… so fricken funny!
What makes this film so impactful is watching Amy Everson’s character seemingly bloom while courting Kentucker’s character! Now – this is a FANTASTIC FEST film. Shit is going to hit a fan at some point. The film was emotionally involved, had a wonderful sense of humor and tragedy. I believed this romantic suspense flick. The characters had souls you could feel from the movie. This is a woman dealing with trauma in an artistic manner and you just feel incredibly protective of her over the course of the movie.
There’s really two incredibly important things to take from this film. First, Jason Banker employed some Altman-esque Improv and Documentary coverage, which completely enthralled me. Jason Banker is absolutely a major talent. I haven’t seen a film this beautifully tragic since MAY by Lucky McKee. They’re very different films, but about how the isolated so desperately want to believe in love, they yearn for it, but it so rarely comes to be.
The other is Amy Everson. She’s definitely got a quirky streak, but oh my god you’ll love her in this movie. Not just that, but I have been haunted & delighted by her performance for the rest of the day. My feelings about both of the films I saw after this… well, you see a film that bares a soul like this, you really want everyone else to get their shit together and tell HUMAN STORIES with this blessed medium instead of… well, I’ll get there. I’d love to see Amy Everson to start showing up in Indies and possibly bigger films. She’s for real!
Second film of the day was EVERLY. It stars Salma Hayek, who I bow down and worship like the lowly dog I am, but that really didn’t do much. It was brutal watching this film after FELT. The whiplash between SOUL and SOULESS has never been so clearly underlined with two films.
Now – I love Salma, but this is a film about an alleged sex slave for the past 5 years… The opening blacked out scene are the sounds of a group of men gang-raping her. Thankfully, we’re spared. Instead, we’re in the darkness, until Salma bursts in, a bit bloody and beaten and naked (actually very non-exploitively shot) and she’s acting a bit traumatized, but…
There’s no character development in this thing. Salma miraculously becomes an incredible survivor, wiping out Keanu-levels of bodies… but none of it really resonates. Everyone dying is pretty much anonymous, save for a pair of characters… but then, I didn’t feel anything for anyone in this film. There’s a couple of action gags that I enjoyed for the sheer fun of them… but a movie has to be about more than empty death and violence.
Instead, let me tell you about a film I wished I’d taken Yoko to, and that was the film I sent Father Geek to check out… SPRING.
I saw this on a screener in advance of the festival, but holy shit is it a great film. I’ve written a tad about it on AICN before. I referred to it as Linklater meets Lovecraft – and it would have been a PERFECT film to follow up FELT with. SPRING is a story about a man that has lost everything that kept him locked down in the United States, he feels he needs to get the hell out of dodge, so he travels to Southern Italy… not far from Pompeii! He meets some guys he quickly takes up with and they end up in a coastal sleepy city and meets a beautiful girl and finds a job helping out on a Farm for Room & Board.
The romance that follows is beautiful, although it was also haunted. She likes casual relationships – and he… well, he doesn’t have the happiest recent history – and she digs for it. Which exposes him as a raw nerve. Their relationship is that of two people discovering each other – looking deeply to see if the other is the one – and our lead Evan is so hopeful. He needs something to live for. And she does too, even if she has trouble admitting it.
The Lovecraft/Horror side of this film (remember, we’re at FANTASTIC FEST!) – is strange. Father Geek correctly draws parallels to some of the awesome work of Stuart Gordon here – and he’s right. We get some really cool horror imagery, but it’s nothing specific that you have quite seen before. She’s something ancient and terribly interesting. The film also has a tremendous ending that thrilled me. See SPRING. I know this started about EVERLY, but I would rather talk about a film I’m passionate about, rather than one that left me empty.
I wish I had loved EVERLY, I come to FANTASTIC FEST to love film, but here’s the thing, Joe Lynch definitely exhibits talent for capturing some mayhem, it’s just those characters that need work. He’s trying some Miike tricks and while they’re graphic… it just doesn’t really resonate. Bummer.
Then it came time for the Midnight slot. The great deal of folks abandoned the Drafthouse in lieu of sitting ringside for the FANTASTIC DEBATES and boxing match. I’m actively trying to spend as much of my time in front of screens as possible. Increasingly at Festivals, I’m called on to handle business for the site and REHAB. I decided this FANTASTIC FEST – I wasn’t leaving the fest for anything other than the 2 film break at MondoCon.
Even though… I would love to go party with friends, I’m saving that for CLOSING NIGHT – where I will make a full on ass of myself, but for now – I’m trying to see as many films as possible and I feel quite rewarded thus far.
My Midnight choice was LOCAL GOD or DIOS LOCAL as it will be known in its native Uruguay.
LOCAL GOD is scary. A 3-piece Rock Band decides to film a music video in the heart of an old abandoned Gold Mine! While trying to hook up a GoPro to the cave wall, there’s a slight cave in… don’t worry – nobody was injured, but it reveals the statuary image of one of PAZUZU’s cousins – and shit gets real.
Before all of this though – we get glimpses of the hard times our 3 characters have experienced. The main body of the film are 3 separate narrative perspectives of this very fucked up cave. I started shaking my head when they broke through a barred entrance with the sign PELIGRO meaning DANGER. But these Band members haven’t been watching their horror films, cuz… Yeah, just don’t do that.
The unnamed demon spirit unleashed to torment these musicians does so in a multi-tiered attack. The demon assaults his victims with surreal horrors based upon their worst moments in life – and it is powerful stuff. The location amplifies the claustrophobic middle of nowhere nightmare these characters are facing.
This film is a much larger production than Director Gustavo Hernandez Ibañez’s last film LA CASA MUDA, which was remade into THE SILENT HOUSE. I like LOCAL GOD over either of those films – and shows that Gustavo is becoming an even stronger director. Good news for Uruguayan Horror!!!
That was it for Day 3. Whilst talking around, I heard real good buzz on DUKE OF BURGUNDY, THE BABADOOK, IN ORDER OF DISAPPEARANCE, BROS BEFORE HOS and FROM THE DARK – all from today! So many great options to see, must see them all!
