Fantastic Fest 06–Roman/Jack Stevenson Presents: Movies With Roots In Hell

ROMAN

A few years ago, a guy named Lucky McKee wrote and directed a little horror movie called May. It wasn’t a huge hit, but it gave him a pretty big cult following. His star, Angela Bettis (who I went to high school with but, unfortunately, have no recollection of at all…sorry, Angela), got her own little cult following of goth dudes who thought it was awesome that she liked to cut people up.

Now it’s Angela’s turn to put Lucky through actor’s hell. He still wrote the script, but Angela is directing him in the title role.

Roman is a lonely guy, but he doesn’t do a whole lot to remedy that situation. He keeps to himself at work, so much so that no one likes him. He never leaves his apartment except to check the mail. This he does at the same time every day. Why is that? Because that’s when SHE checks her mail.

The object of his desire (Kristen Bell before she got all “Veronica Mars”ed up) crosses his window every day at 5:31. He rushes out and watches as she checks her mail. Then he goes back home and sulks. Or he goes up on the roof and drinks a beer…which is what she does one day.

And that’s when they meet. Things go well for a little while. Then they go bad. Very, very bad.

Then he meets Eva (Nectar Rose from Serenity). And things go well again. But not for long.

Some people were thinking that this was going to be May with a guy instead of a girl. It’s not. There are similarities, but it’s completely different. And it’s just as good. Desperation and loneliness are terrible things and can drive some people to do crazy things.

There’s a bit of Vertigo in the film, but I don’t know if it’s intentional. Kristen and Nectar look a lot alike. Who knows? Was Eva supposed to be a substitute for the first, unnamed girl?

The acting is, well, a little shaky. Kristen and Nectar are fine, but Lucky is pretty self-conscious in front of the camera. You can say it was the character, but I think I caught him actually looking at the camera a couple of times. But he’s good enough to be a little bit creepy, but still sort of sympathetic.

Roman took about four years to make. Lucky wrote it soon after May and he and Angela started shooting soon after that. They shot Kristen’s scenes first and then had to put the movie on hold for a while while Lucky did Sick Girl (his “Masters Of Horror” entry) and The Woods, which also played the festival, but I missed it. I’m really glad that they went back to this one. Angela’s a good director and I hope she does something else. Right now she doesn’t have any plans, but if something good comes along she said that she might try it again.

The movie was shot on a GL1 and an XL2, so it looks like video. But that shouldn’t keep you from seeing it. It’s a great psychological horror movie with a heartbreaking ending. I have no idea what the release plans are, but hopefully it’ll be released in some way. Probably straight to video.

JACK STEVENSON PRESENTS: MOVIES WITH ROOTS IN HELL

Jack Stevenson has been writing about film for a long time. He specializes in cult and hard to find films and doesn’t like to show anything in his road show on video. He has a huge collection of 16mm films that he cuts together to show different aspects of film through the ages.

This first program was all about the evils of drugs. Or, at least, what Hollywood used to say about them. It’s a collection of films from 1916-1972 and ran all the way from “drugs are great!” to “drugs are bad, mmmkay.” Most of it was pretty clueless, but it was all interesting.

The first film he showed was a silent short from 1916 starring Douglas Fairbanks called The Leaping Fish. The hero of the film (played by Fairbanks) was named Coke Ennyday (“Drugs are great!”). He’s always down until he shoots up a little coke and then he can take on anybody! He, in fact, with the help of coke, saves the day.

It’s probably the first real drug comedy on film, but what’s really funny about this short (besides the fact that it actually holds up pretty well for being 90 years old) is that I saw it in a Discovery Channel documentary about coke about three days after this program.

There were a bunch of excerpts and trailers for movies in the 30s (including one that featured a bunch of 40 year old high school girls getting naked and going swimming after smoking some marijuana) and it was amazing how naive they were about drugs. Marijuana is the “devil weed” and it makes kids kill and fuck. ‘Cause that’s what it takes to make kids want to fuck. They don’t want to do that unless they’re stoned. And when was the last time someone who just smoked a joint killed someone?

As time went on films started to show drugs in a more favorable light again. Some of the, anyway. There was, of course, a clip from The Trip, a weird little Roger Corman/Peter Fonda movie from 1967. Oh, sure, Peter has a bad trip on acid, but it opens his mind and makes him more clear.

The really eye-opening clips, though, were from 1970′s The People Next Door. This is apparently one of Jack’s favorite movies. He showed us at least four clips and explained the whole movie to us. It stars Deborah Winters as a 16 year old girl who starts to experiment with drugs and sex. Her straight-laced parents (Eli Wallach and Julie Harris) don’t know what to do with her. They blame her brother (Stephen McHattie), but she takes all the blame herself.

For a movie from 1970, this movie has a lot of nudity in it. Male and female. And it deals with just about every issue of the day: drugs, sex, birth control pills, infidelity, donkey fucking…everything. I actually really want to see this movie. Jack said that he would try to bring it to Austin sometime. Sounds awesome.

Jack’s a pretty interesting guy. I would definitely sit through more of his programs. He’s a little back-dated, though. He’s been living in Denmark for years now and I don’t know if that’s the influence or if he’s actually a little bit out of touch. he uses phrases like “record album” and “DVD cassette” or “DVD cartridge.” It was kinda terrifyin’.

By the way, in the poster, that’s not Jesus. But it would be a lot funnier if it was.