Fantastic Fest 06–Blood Tea And Red String/The Beach Party At The Threshold Of Hell/Gamerz/Street Trash (1987)

The second day of Fantastic Fest provided some of the more interesting films of the entire festival, two of which I’m looking forward to buying.

This first one is NOT one of those.

BLOOD TEA AND RED STRING

Christine Cegavske is a true maverick. Either that or she is an insane genius. I’m not really sure which. Either way, she has made a movie that is definitely to be admired, if not necessarily enjoyed.

Christine has done some animation work on at least one semi-major indie film, Asia Argento’s The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things. But while she was working on that she was also working on this, her magnum opus. It’s the story of…um…some creatures who, um, put an egg in a doll. The doll is then stolen by some…rats? Who then become hedonistic? And then one of them falls in love with the doll.

Honestly, I didn’t get any of it, so don’t ask me what the movie was about.

What I can definitely appreciate is the amount of work that went into the film. Christine did all of the work herself. All of it. Every last detail was her brainchild. She made all of the puppets and costumes, all of the sets, every leaf on every tree. She did all of the stop-motion animation. She had very little help with anything. In fact, the only thing she didn’t do was compose the music.

It took her upwards of 13 years to finish.

I commend her for making such an interesting world and staying completely faithful to her vision. It’s a weird and beautiful world. (Some were saying that it was like Beatrix Potter on acid.) I just wish that the story was a little bit more coherent. Nobody really seemed to understand what the hell was going on. But, seeing as how it was never really made for a mass audience, I guess that’s ok. This is Christine’s vision.

When the woman who chose this film tried to call her to ask about the film, she wouldn’t talk to her. Her husband did all of the talking.

Like I said: and insane genius.

THE BEACH PARTY AT THE THRESHOLD OF HELL

This is seriously the most fun I have had at the festival yet. Beach Party is an awesome post-apocalyptic flick that doesn’t take itself too seriously, but always stays true to its world.

Tex Kennedy (writer/co-director Kevin Wheatley) is going to save New America. He is out to find the much prophesized about savior, Benjamin Remington, the nephew of Clark Remington (Daniel Baldwin). Clark helped all of the survivors of the nuclear holocaust by broadcasting hope over what few airwaves he had at his disposal. It was his decision, of course, that his nephew, would be the savior. This kinda pissed off Clark’s son, Vincent (Lea Coco), who likes to be called The Jackle. He now wants to kill Ben just like he killed his father. (Of course, he didn’t ACTUALLY kill his dad, but he was there, so that counts, right?)

Along for the ride to help Ben take charge are two robots, Yul and Quincy (Chandler Parker and Paul Whitty), Cannibal Sue (producer Jamie Bullock), and Javier Castro (Jonathan Davidson), Fidel’s great-great-great grandson.

And the whole movie is shot in a comic book/History Channel way, with constant asides from historians (including Tony Hale from “Arrested Development” and Richard Riehle from Office Space, who also served as the narrator) and some really cool, kinetic animation that help tell the story. (There’s even a whole animated sequence that, in a very Monty Python way, helped the filmmakers save money.)

The whole movie was kind of remeniscent of “Arrested Development,” which isn’t too surprising since Jamie was on an episode and was probably heavily influenced by it. Good for her and her crew. That was an awesome show and the more people who were influenced by it, the better.

There really wasn’t anything bad about this movie. It’s not perfect, by any means (it runs a little bit long in the middle), but all flaws can be overlooked because it’s so fucking fun. And all of the actors throw themselves into their parts so well that you have to love all of them. Luckily, they already have two more movies mapped out for more adventures. Let’s hope they make enough money to make them. (Get the word out, folks! If you get a chance to see this, make other people watch it with you!) Check out their website and add them to your myspace! Make this movie at least a tiny hit!!

And, for an great double feature, look for Six-String Samurai. Beach Party reminded me a lot of that one.

GAMERZ

In the realm of Dungeons & Dragons, the alpha geek prevails. And when the alpha geek also happens to be a lonely, poor Scottish kid, he has a lot of time on his hands to figure out how to prevail.

Ralph (Ross Finbow) is the alpha geek. But it takes him a while to get that distinction. It also takes him creating his own world for D&D and finding a group of people to play it with on the campus of the college he just started attending. When he does find a group, though, it comes with a price.

That price is love. He falls head over heel for Marlyn (Danielle Stewart), the pretty geek who sometimes thinks she’s actually her elfin character. But there’s also Ralph’s arch-nemesis, Lennie (James Young), who decides that he wants to play, too. They become tentative friends when they strike a deal that allows him to play, but he starts showing some interest in Marlyn, too. And, just to help Ralph have a really terrible time of it, she shows interest in Lennie, too.

But who does she really like? And is she really what she seems to be?

As much fun as this movie should have been, it was really only about half that much fun. That’s not saying it’s a bad movie, it was just a bit too long at 101 minutes. There was some really funny stuff here and some that I just wish that director Robbie Fraser had cut away from a little bit sooner.

Some people will be turned off by the fact that it hit every single cliche of the gamer set, but I didn’t think that it did so in a bad way. The cliches were handled in a pretty funny way and the characters, while being pretty stereotypical (the uber-geeky Risk Management student, the goth kid, the elfin girl) were well written, well acted and endearing.

Not bad. Just not as good as it could have been.

It did get an extra point for the Dagger Of Enlightenment. (Ooh, that’s such an inside joke. Don’t worry if you don’t get it. Only me and a few of my friends do. And that’s what I’m here for: to make my friends laugh. Screw everybody else.)

STREET TRASH

Before this festival I had never heard of Street Trash. But any horror movie from the 80s that warrents a two hour documentary (The Meltdown Memiors by producer/writer Roy Frumkes) has to be worth watching.

I skipped the Memiors because I had never seen the movie. Who wants to see a doc about a movie you’ve never seen? But I did make it in to see the tail end of the Q&A with Frumkes and he stuck around for another one after the screening of Street Trash.

The movie follows the adventures of a young street kid named Fred (Mike Lackey) who knows the streets of his New York neighborhood like the back of his big-ass hat. He’s also an alchoholic who frequents one particular liquor store and berates the owner every time he goes, often for no reason whatsoever.

When the owner puts out a case of Viper that dated back to the 40s, things get a little melty. Fred picks up a bottle the eventually gets stolen from him. The first victim of the Viper melts into a toilet.

And he’s really just about the only victim for about 45 minutes. It takes a long time for Fred to figure out that anyone even died. When he does it’s after a cop (Bill Chepil who actually was a cop) has already started an investigation.

Of course, Fred is the first to figure it out.

There’s also a real bad guy in the guise of Bronson (Vic Noto who was actually a semi-crazy Vietnam vet), a crazed out Vietnam vet who thinks that everyone is out to get him. He’s also a complete asshole who would shove an old lady down a well if it meant he might get to some booze faster than she would.

But the story is really secondary to the gore. This movie, while in the same group as classic genre movies like Evil Dead 2 and Re-Animator, is really a bridge between those better movies and Troma of the day. The characters were slightly better than your average Troma flick, but Frumkes and director J Michael Muro wanted to offend every group of people they could. And they do their damndest. It’s fuckin’ awesome!

It’s an incredibly gory, offensive and awesomely fun flick with no redeeming social values except to show that we all suck in our own special way. And to watch the dates on alcohol. Story be damned. It’s all about the gore and the great lines. (Although, that near sex scene between Fred’s brother and the lead female character, Wendy (Jane Arakawa). He looked about 15. But she looked about 30! What the fuck?!

This is coming out in a special two-disc set on Sept. 26. That’s how much respect this movie is getting these days. Now, if only we could get a two-disc set for Evil Dead 2.

Two things to note about this movie: Director Muro is now one of the most sought after steadi-cam operators in Hollywood. (He shot Crash.) He’s also a born-again Christian. He will only work on movies with moral value these days and pretty much disowns this movie. However, when Frumkes went to him about the documentary, he said that he wouldn’t participate, but “I won’t get in your way.” Good for him. I’m glad he didn’t try to block the making of the doc.

Also, there’s a familiar name attached to the movie. Bryan Singer’s first job on a full-fledged film was as a grip here. (Probably why Muro was his steadi-cam op on X2.) I have no idea if he was in the doc.

OH YEAH! SHORTS!!

Oops. I forgot about one of these in yesterday’s reviews. I’ll try to put them at the end of each day’s reviews from now on.

MEAT THE CAMPBELLS (played with The Last Supper)

Not bad little short about a kid who starts to believe what a friend of his told him: that the new kid’s family are cannibals. Of course, it can’t be true…can it?

It’s got some fun stuff in it and it definitely has its Tim Burton moments. But, overall, it’s a little bit on the juvenile side. That’s not always a bad thing, but it could have been toughened up a little bit. And maybe tightened. It’s not bad, though, and I’ll be looking for director Simon Hynd’s first feature, Senseless, next year. (Hopefully it has nothing to do with that Wayans brothers flick from a few years back.)

MORBID CURIOSITY (played with Blood Tea)

A fun short about a girl (writer/director Cindy Baer from Austin) who makes horrible deaths happen with her own curiosity. If she thinks, “Hmmm. I wonder what would happen if a shark appeared in this pool,” it happens. Is she actually doing it? Or is it just a bunch of coincidences?

This one is really funny and never outlasts its premise. Any longer than six minutes and we would have been wallowing in too much of a good thing. As it is, it looks like Cindy had a lot of fun thinking of these weird-ass deaths. Can’t wait to see if there’s something around the corner for her.

COST OF LIVING (played with Beach Party)

In the future, anyone can live forever…as long as they have at least $6 million. William B. Davis (Cancer Man from “The X-Files”) finds that out the hard way.

This is probably the best short I’ve seen so far at the festival. Davis is a great actor who, surprisingly after his most famous role, can make you feel sorry for him in an insant. It’s funny and heartfelt and kind of makes a statement about current health care problems. (Although I’m not sure that it really meant to do that.) Check it out if you ever get the chance.

CROOKED MICK OF THE SPEEWAH (played with Gamerz)

A kind of funny short shot against digital backgrounds about a strong man in Australia who, along with his barker, finds out that there’s someone who is possibly stronger than him.

The story is a traditional Aussie myth, so I can’t fault it too much. It is a little bit predictable, though, and a little on the long side. The backgrounds are pretty awesome and worth the 10 minutes. I especially like the sheep on stilts. Watch for the sheepdog.