April Showers IV: Day Four

On Day Four of April Showers, I will finally talk about Dave Jackson's bizarre little indie Cat Sick Blues.

A troubled man named Ted (Matthew C. Vaughn) believes that taking nine lives will bring his beloved cat Patrick back from the dead.

I caught this at Fright Night Theatre a few weeks ago and it's been rattling around in my brain ever since. An extension of a short film I remember seeing a few years ago at Little Terrors, this effort from Down Under is very hard to get a handle on.

Matthew C. Vaughn as Catman in Cat Sick Blues.

Coincidentally, Cat Sick Blues does share several traits with Alice Lowe's Prevenge, the film I talked about yesterday. Both protagonists are dealing with loss, leaving a trail of bodies in their wake and share almost identical epiphanies when they reach their endgames. However, that's where the similarities end, as Lowe's dry humour was pitch perfect and Jackson's was more of a bad taste bonanza.

Cat Sick Blues' sense of tone is decidedly problematic. I've never seen audience laughter cut off so abruptly than I did here. On more than one occasion, I found myself just trying to get into the head space of how Jackson came up with some of this stuff. Apart from the brutal violence of the killings, Jackson also shined a light on the uglier side of Internet culture, which lead to its own set of uncomfortable moments. I say uncomfortable mainly because they were sadly all too true.

I think perhaps what made Cat Sick Blues hard to dissect was how it at the same time felt cheap, yet was also fantastically well shot. The hostel sequence where Catman (Ted's alter ego) goes on a Ted Bundy-style rampage to the tune of Mistabishi's Repulsion will never leave your head once it's in there. I was, somewhat begrudgingly, with this movie up to a point, but the tail end really dragged while it struggled to find a conclusion. I could've have done without the odd tangents that made up most of the last half-hour.

Cat Sick Blues is such a confounding piece because even though there was as much bad as there was good, I can't stop thinking about it. Catman was such an indelible figure, and it's troubling because characters that have this much resonance with me usually end up being future Halloween costumes. I mean, I've dressed up as Bobby Yeah and Peach Fuzz before, but I feel this one would get me arrested. So yeah, probably a no-go.

Fright Night Theatre Awards

The awards for last weekend's Fright Night Theatre festival in Hamilton were announced a few days ago. It was an awesome time with the biggest attendance so far of its nine year history.

My favourite film, Agnieszka Smoczynska's The Lure took home six awards, including Best Cinematography, Best Make-up Effects and Best Score.

Dave Jackson's Cat Sick Blues, the most confounding film of the weekend (but more on that at a later date) also grabbed six awards, including Best Director, Best Writing and Best Villain.

In the short film category, top honours went to festival circuit favourite, Chris McInroy's Death Metal. Perhaps of no surprise to anyone that has seen it, Anthony Cousins' piece When Susurrus Stirs won Most Shocking, and Best Canadian short was shared between Jean-Claude Leblanc's Studded Nightmare and Blake Mawson's PYOTR495.

The Audience Choice Awards went to Tricia Lee's Blood Hunters for Best Feature, and the terrific Your Date Is Here by Zak White & Todd Spence for Best Short.

For the full list of winners, click here. Have a great weekend and see you back here Monday for a returning feature now that April will then be upon us.

Fright Night Theatre 2017

I've been a little lazy this week I admit, but I will be back with reviews soon, as this weekend is the 2017 edition of Fright Night Theatre!

In edition to bringing Agnieszka Smoczynska's debut The Lure to the Hammer, there are also weird and wacky treats like Pool Party Massacre and Cat Sick Blues. Come on by to the Staircase Theatre if you happen to be in the area.

For more info on the fest, click here.

Welcome To The Family.

Things got so crazy with my latest project, I never got to tell you how you the latest edition of Fright Night Theatre went. The answer is very well. I was particularly proud of the short film programme we put together this year, but I think I’ll post about all the tremendous shorts I’ve seen over the last few months at a later date.

As  for the rest of FNT, in addition to seeing Neil DiLiberto’s Nova Seed for a third time (man, I adore that movie) I also took in Scott Schirmer’s newest release, Plank Face.

While out camping with his girlfriend, Max (Nathan Barrett) is captured by a family of feral cannibals and forced to adopt their primitive way of life.

Schirmer and his crew at Bandit Motion Pictures have served up another bizarre and uncompromising tale here – and no, that will not be the last cannibal pun you read here. I thought how the film explored the idea of family, that it is an instinctual constant no matter how civilized the subjects, was really fascinating. It could be the best representation of this I’ve seen since the bar was set in the nineteen-seventies.

As this movie progresses, we witness the stripping down of the protagonist and his gradual indoctrination into the family. Perhaps the most impressive part of this was that it was done with very little dialogue with almost none past the first act. As we’ve come to expect from Schirmer, there was tons of gore and nudity, but in this movie, it rarely felt exploitative. I feel that is one of his strongest talents, as his more provocative sequences (in Harvest Lake and this) always seem to have purpose and make sense within the narrative that he is spinning.

Nathan Barrett as the titular character, Plank Face.

However, the real reason all of this works is the up-for-anything cast that Schrimer assembled for Plank Face. Whereas most of the cast was made up of locals and referrals, Nathan Barrett was a complete question mark going into production. They had to take his word that he would be cool with “being put through hell”. In the end, he exceeded expectations, as Barrett handled the emotional and physical challenges of the role pretty much as well as anyone I’ve ever seen.

As for the family, they were all one-hundred-per-cent committed, but I especially liked Bunny Girl (Alyss Winkler). Her animal-like, yet playful physicality drew my eyes to her every time she was onscreen. Ellie Church was as stalwart as always here, and having also done the hair, make-up and costume work for the project, she remains one of Bandit Pictures' most reliable and important assets.

Alyss Winkler as Bunny Girl.

Back as cinematographer on Plank Face, was Brian Williams. While this wasn’t as visually pleasing as Harvest Lake, he still beautifully utilized the Indianian forest well. Those two films were actually shot in the same area, barely one season apart, but it’s quite shocking how different they look. It just goes to show how much of a difference a colour palette can make to a movie's essence.

I’ve got to hand it to Bandit Pictures, they make perversely engaging films. And while it is true their subject matter might not always be easily digestible (there it is!), I really admire how bold and unique they are. We need more of that these days.

Happenings.

I’ve got a few things that I can finally talk about now. It is kind of coincidental that two projects I am involved with both got officially announced within a week of each other.

The first is ABC’s of Death 2.5. It had been in the works for such a long time that Schwartz & I were honestly wondering if it would ever actually come to fruition. Thankfully, it has indeed now become a reality and our short M is for Manure is one of the twenty-six shorts included on the release. That’s no small feat when you consider that Manure was selected from a pool of over five-hundred contest entries. ABC’s 2.5 is being released through Vimeo on August 2nd. Click here for more info on the release.

I believe I mentioned a while back that I had become part of the Little Terrors (Toronto’s monthly short film showcase) programming team. Well, this series has now birthed a new anthology called Minutes Past Midnight which culls the best of the best. I helped curate the selections and believe me when I say it’s a really strong line-up from around the world. Minutes, the first of several planned anthology releases, will be released on VOD October 18th and on DVD on February 7th. Click here for more details about the release.

Lastly, if that wasn’t enough, I also recently joined the programming team at Fright Night Theatre, the group of maniacs warping minds over in Hamilton, Ontario.

I do what I can.

Come On In, The Water's Fine!

Last weekend was the inaugural edition of the Fright Night Theatre Film Festival in Hamilton. Organizers Aaron Allen & Darrell Marsh have been screening films out of the cozy Staircase Theatre for years, but this was their first stab at a full-fledged weekend event. Featuring a programme that ranged from the nostalgic to post-modern, Fright brought forth a mix of shocks and absurdity.

My main reason for being there was the world premiere of Scott Schrimer's new flick, Harvest Lake. You've heard me talk about his previous film Found at length, so I was elated when I heard that his latest effort would be screening two towns over.

Four friends visiting a lakeside cottage come across a lascivious entity that threatens to consume them.

I, perhaps not surprisingly, dug this movie. It kind of reminded me of that old X-Files episode with the mushroom spores, if instead of hallucinating, Mulder & Scully got freaky. In some ways, Harvest Lake was exactly what I was expecting, but in others it was much more. I feel Schirmer elevated this simple story, which could've just been cheap exploitation, to something deeply visceral and, dare I say, erotic. This shows real growth from Schrimer as a filmmaker because as much as I love Found, it is a little rough around the edges. Harvest Lake was beautiful to look at for more than the obvious reasons. In addition to the copious amounts of skin – I don't think I've seen bikinis worn better than they were by fetching leads Tristan Risk and Ellie Church – cinematographer Brian Williams filmed the surrounding forest and lake as if they were living, breathing beings.

Ellie Church as Jennifer in Harvest Lake.

But it was not just the look of the film that grabbed me, but also the music. Schrimer commissioned the musical duo of Adam Robl & Shawn Sutta and the result is incredibly hypnotic. It's one of the best instances of a score representing the subject matter onscreen I've witnessed in quite some time. Once again delivering on the special effects was longtime collaborator Arthur Cullipher. Not only were they incredibly tactile (oh the slime) but the creature designs were also distinct and memorable.

Schrimer, Williams and Church were on hand for the screening and humble as per usual. Among other things, they talked a bit about their funding strategy. The film itself was self-funded, for the incredibly impressive sum of eight grand, and they only turned to the Internet for post-production costs.

“We took pre-orders for a limited edition Blu-ray and if we sold enough of them, they would pay for cost of having them made. We didn't want to fund the movie with Kickstarter or Indiegogo if we could do that ourselves. Too often people just pocket the money that is donated and never deliver. That ruins it for everyone. If you get screwed over, you'll be less likely to donate to something else in the future. We wanted to make sure we had something to offer first.”

Director Scott Schirmer, star Ellie Church & producer/DOP Brian Williams.

Harvest Lake might not appeal to some, but there's no denying that it is unique. And that is a good word to describe Scott Schirmer. In the indie landscape, a supposed haven for creative freedom, most genre filmmakers are content to just ape their influences. Schrimer however, is carving out stories that, thematically and visually, go beyond where many are willing to go.