The Screengrab : hick flicks

Netflix Killed the Video Store…Or Did It?

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 19:30:00 GMT

While doing my holiday shopping a few weeks back, I was startled to find that Waterloo Video – an adjunct of the venerable Waterloo Records here in God’s own Austin, Texas – had shuttered its doors. I shouldn’t have been too surprised, I guess; there’s that whole “economy going in the toilet” thing…and then there’s those little red envelopes that arrive in the mail, envelopes containing DVD rentals with no late charges, envelopes that threaten the very existence of those magical wonderlands known as video stores.

Of course, not all video stores are so magical, and I suspect I’m not alone in shedding no tears over the Netflix effect on Blockbuster Video’s bottom line. But while Waterloo Video was never my favorite, I did feel a twinge of guilt upon spotting those empty shelves gathering dust. For I, too, have sold my soul to the demon Netflix, and for all the conveniences I now enjoy, there is, alas, something missing. I think back to the summer of 2002, when I first embarked on the research phase of my book Hick Flicks – back before YouTube and BitTorrent entered my life, let alone Netflix. It was a summer spent wandering the action-packed aisles of I Luv Video, stacking up yellowed VHS boxes containing long-forgotten drive-in schlock, along with cult items and rarities that Netflix is unlikely to ever offer. Now I can’t even remember the last time I rented from I Luv Video, although I’m fairly certain I still owe them for late fees. With my lazy dependency on Netflix, am I helping to kill a beloved Austin institution?

Well, the good news is – apparently not. In the latest issue of the Austin Chronicle, Marc Savlov writes that, against all odds, Austin’s indie video stores are doing just fine. “It's Austin and its homegrown film-geek culture that has allowed places such as the Alamo Drafthouse, websites such as Harry Knowles' Ain't It Cool News, and the two biggest indie video-rental stores in town – I Luv Video and Vulcan – to not only survive but indeed thrive while nearly everywhere else in the country the market is grinding to a standstill.”

The secret to I Luv Video’s success, according to co-owner Conrad Bejarano: “What we decided to do was sort of groom our clientele and just get two or three copies of a mainstream VHS release – as opposed to the 50 to 100 copies a single Blockbuster would buy – and spend the rest of the money on films we wanted to watch, which were weird, underground, and generally not carried by Blockbuster – or anyone else, for that matter. And that's stayed our guiding philosophy from there on out.”

It’s an inspiring story, and my latest New Year’s resolution is to resume my patronage of I Luv Video, especially now that they have free beer on Tuesdays. I’ll even pay off those pesky late fees.

Related:
Netflix Rebellion
Mondo Kim's is Coming to Your House

The Screengrab Holiday Special: Movies We're Thankful For (Part Two)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 15:30:00 GMT

SCOTT VON DOVIAK IS THANKFUL FOR:

JAWS (1975)

It's the summer of 1975 and I have successfully completed the second grade. I am living on a Navy base in Puerto Rico, and I've got the run of the place: swimming pool, ball field, bowling alley, snack bar all within easy biking distance…and of course, the movie theater. We're a few months behind the states, which means every time a kid comes back from a week's vacation stateside, I hear about it all over again: Jaws. By summer's end, I have entire scenes memorized and I haven't even seen the damn thing yet. Every week I check the base newsletter (El Tiburon – meaning, of course, "the shark," and did I mention that our little league team was also called the Sharks?) for the upcoming movie listings. Finally it appears on the schedule. When the big night arrives, I pedal to the theater, ditch my bike and get in line. While trying to catch my breath, I overhear bits of conversation. They're not talking about sharks – they're talking about pinball wizards and deaf, dumb and blind kids. I get to the ticket window. "Sorry, there was a misprint. The movie tonight is Tommy." I pedal home in tears. I rage to my parents about the unfairness of it all. My dad gets on the horn and raises a stink. Apparently he's not the only one. The next night, I finally get my shark movie. I close my eyes when the head pops out from under the boat – I knew it was coming – but other than that, I'm good. I've seen it a few times since then.

A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971)

A few years later I'm in high school in Maine. My friends Nick and Rodney and I are the A/V department, which somehow entitles us – again – to the run of the place. We've got keys to everything, including the teacher's lounge, where we sometimes hang out long after hours, watching the rough footage of our day's production. (Our primary function is shooting the basketball games and school plays, but we often commandeer the equipment to make our own sketch comedy show, a sublime blend of the Monty Python and Bert and I sensibilities, God willing now lost to the ages.) One day someone brings in a rented copy of A Clockwork Orange, a movie I'd tried to watch once before. I wasn't ready for it then; I was ready for it now. There can't possibly be a more awesome, mind-blowing movie when you're sixteen years old – especially if you're watching it in the teacher's lounge. Up until now I'd always been baffled and a little perturbed that the director got so much more credit than the screenwriter. So the director decides where to put the camera and maybe works with the actors a little? So what? A Clockwork Orange clarified the matter for me, more so than any Filmmaking 101 course ever could. When I got to college and caught up on Pauline Kael and company, I learned that not everyone was quite so enamored with it. I even grudgingly conceded they might have a point or two, but the impact of that long-ago viewing still lingers.

APOCALYPSE BOP (1996)

Every cineaste should get a chance to play movie star once in their lives, and I got that opportunity when fellow Screengrabber Andrew Osborne cast me in the lead role of Zeke in his indie feature Apocalypse Bop. (What can I say, my price was right.) I was working as an office drone at Warner Bros. in Los Angeles when word came through that the financing was in place (i.e., Andrew had maxed out his credit cards – where is his government bailout, I ask you?) and shooting was scheduled to commence in Boston and Middleboro, Mass. Although fully prepared to quit my job, I was given a leave of absence by an understanding boss and jetted east for the month-long shoot. As the perpetually harried writer-director-producer, I'm sure Andrew has a very different perspective (and maybe he'll tell you all about it someday), but we cast members had an absolute blast – that is, until the final days when my immune system finally shut down under the strain of 12-hour shooting days and late-night partying. The movie itself – a surreal Gen-X comedy about a party at the end of the world – didn't become the next Clerks, but it had a respectable festival run and I happen to think it's pretty groovy – and you can order your own copy for cheap in the fancy new VHS format if you're curious! Later I would go on to co-write and co-star in the Austin-shot indie What I Like About You, but it wasn't quite the same experience as my summer vacation as a movie star.

DELIVERANCE (1972)

On a whim during the summer of 2001, I decided to partake in a combination canoe trip, BBQ and outdoor screening of Deliverance sponsored by the Alamo Drafthouse (see below). I thought it might make for a fun Film Threat article, but I ended up getting a lot more out of it than that. The complete tale of my harrowing voyage is told in the preface to my book Hick Flicks – which was inspired by this very same event. Before the feature presentation began, trailers from '70s drive-in pictures like Gator, Grizzly and Smokey and the Bandit were shown, and I had a flash of inspiration that led to nearly three years worth of research, writing and – most time-consuming of all – watching hundreds of (mostly terrible) movies about moonshine, fast cars, redneck sheriffs and killer hillbillies. Eventually, however, I got a book out of it, and that will live on into eternity – or at least until all the copies decompose.

ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE

I've been a working film critic for nearly a decade now, and I must confess that the thrill of going to the movies is…I won't say gone, but somewhat diminished. Very often I'm assigned to review movies I wouldn't see on a dare otherwise. The screenings are free, but not always convenient, and many of them are promo events sponsored by radio stations with loudmouth hosts shooting t-shirts into the audience…the whole production has very little resemblance to what I used to love about going to the movies. (Has my pity party started yet?) So it is that on this day of turkey, stuffing, football and giant floating Underdogs, I give thanks to the Alamo Drafthouse, which has made moviegoing fun again. How have they done this? Well, they've added beer to the proceedings, which is always a plus in my book. But they also have tasty food, unusual programming and a keen sense of showmanship. You always want to get there early for the custom-tailored pre-show. And, of course, for the beer.

And thank you, Screengrab reader, for putting up with my little walk down memory lane. My list may have seemed somewhat random, but I'm very thankful for all of the above and I'm glad it's all on the record. Now go get you some more pie.

Click Here For More Thanks From Andrew Osborne, Phil Nugent, Paul Clark, Leonard Pierce & Sarah Clyne Sundberg

Contributor: Scott Von Doviak

Screengrab's Top Guilty Pleasures (Part Four)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 22:30:00 GMT

HAYDEN CHILDS' GUILTY PLEASURES:

ROCK 'N' ROLL HIGH SCHOOL (1979)

I'm generally bad at guilty pleasures lists because I'm not really embarrassed about my taste in pop culture, bad or good. However, some more serious-minded movie critics might mock my love of these movies. So, for your pleasure, instead of just laughing them off, here's why I like these movies. Rock & Roll High School is a Roger Corman film starring P.J. Soles as the world's biggest Ramones fan, Riff Randall. It's directed by Allan Arkush, who went on to helm such thoughtful, profound movies as Heartbeeps and Caddyshack II. Mary Woronov, the former Velvet Underground/Exploding Plastic Inevitable dancer, plays the tyrannical Principal Togar. And the Ramones play the most awesome and beloved band in the world. In the real world, they were indeed awesome, but nowhere as beloved as this movie indicates, which is what we in the business call "a crying shame." Anyway, Principal Togar has boundary issues and enjoys burning albums and generally overstepping her authority. So when the Ramones arrive in town, all hell breaks loose at her school. There's a subplot about a pretty nerdy girl getting the dorky jock guy, but it's slight enough to pass by without sticking to memory. What's important: footage of The Ramones in their prime. And then the school explodes (spoiler!).

HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER (1973)

I seem to love this movie, which is a mostly indefensible horror-Western starring Clint Eastwood. See, this town's got some bad mojo because they paid some bad dudes to kill off a crusading sheriff and then they double-crossed the bad dudes. And now, a few years later, the bad dudes are getting out of prison. Who could have foreseen this? Since when have prison terms come to an end? So, Eastwood appears out of nowhere at the beginning of the movie and immediately starts killing men and raping women because he's a real man, not some namby-pamby liberal who doesn't kill and rape. Naturally, the townsfolk decide that this guy is the guy to help them beat the bad dudes (this is also the reasoning behind the PATRIOT Act), and they go along with his increasingly insane demands because... uh, I don't know. One guy balks and Eastwood kills him, too, so I guess they're scared or something. Eastwood's character is never named, and the end of the movie suggests that he is either a supernatural entity or a semi-famous celebrity with a high opinion of himself. The supernatural angle ought to be some comfort to the women he raped in town, because ghost-rapes don't count. Or so says Camille Paglia. In the swinging spirit of bad '70s movies, both of the women are really into him after he, y'know, violates them anyway. Progressive! So, yeah, this movie is indefensible. And pretty dumb. And yet I watch some of it every single time I catch it playing on TV, which is pretty much every third night. Does this make me a bad person? My religion of choice says yes. Another note: the Wikipedia page for the film includes a picture of Eastwood on his horse with the helpful subtitle, "The stranger on the white horse is symbolic." Thanks, Wikipedia! You're the best.

MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON (1939)

Li'l Jimmy Stewart is a golden-hearted guy with a heart of gold. And I don't know if I mentioned it, but he's a guy. This movie takes place in the 1930s, and only white guys like Li'l Jimmy could be Senators in the 1930s. And most were! At least, those that didn't live in Hoovervilles. The upper crust, if you know what I mean. Our humble director Frank Capra believes the best of the common upper-crust man, or at least, he knows that people will pay good money to hear that they're better than those fat cats in Washington. So Li'l Jimmy (known as Mr. Smith in this movie) goes to Washington as a Senator. But those bad fat cats are up to something nefarious. Something to do with earmarks or bridges to unknown destinations or some fat-cat stuff like that. But they didn't count on Mr. Smith and his golden-hearted maverick ways! Although we don't know what party (Republican!) Mr. Smith is in (Republican!), he bucks the fat cats in a crazy, awe-inspiring filibuster. Yes, a filibuster! The parliamentary procedure whereby a legislator talks for an infinite number of hours about anything that strikes them. It's crazy and awe-inspiring, I say! And much better in montage than real time. Anyway, blah blah maverick blah. After 45 straight days of talking (while the awestruck galleries fill up with spectators, because what person in their right mind could resist an extremely privileged white guy talking about whatever comes to mind for hours upon hours? I get chills just thinking about it), Li'l Jimmy is turning into a broken shell of a man. But then! The indulgent Vice-President presiding over the Senate (or is he the Senate Majority Leader? I don't know. Or care.) smiles at him. And IT'S ON! Suddenly Boy Scout-proxies are trumpeting the news all over his state! And in the face of his waning blather, all the bad-guy fat-cats admit that their earmarks are no match for his mavericky ways and then they all cheer and elect Sarah Palin to be President. WOW! Someone give this movie an award!

Shoot, I forgot to say what I like about all this hokum. But I think the clip says it better than I could.

HOOPER (1978)

In the coveted Oscar category of Burt Reynolds Movies Involving Rocket Cars, there's little that can stand up to Hooper. Directed by former stuntman Hal Needham and starring Reynolds, Sally Field, Jan-Michael Vincent, Brian Keith, and Robert Klein, it's an attempt to recapture the successful hicksploitation (thanks for the term, Scott!) of the previous year's Smokey And The Bandit. Reynolds plays the greatest stuntman who's ever lived, who finds himself being pushed into an extensive stunt involving multiple explosions and the aforementioned rocket car. Despite the constant jokey macho bullshit in the movie, Hooper features a surprisingly tender and complex relationship between Reynolds and Field. And there's a lot of darkness in the depiction of the downside of stuntman life. Who would have guessed that constantly hurting yourself and risking danger could have potentially dire consequences? Not me.

SWEET TALKER (1991)

I've never actually seen this Aussie romantic comedy starring Karen Allen during her lost years, but the soundtrack was composed and performed by cult musician Richard Thompson. Coincidentally, I wrote a book about an album by Mr. Thompson and his ex-wife called Shoot Out The Lights and, seeing as how the holiday season is almost upon us, I thought I would mention it here. Self-promotion: the guiltiest pleasure of all!

Click Here For More Guilt From Andrew Osborne, Scott Von Doviak, Leonard Pierce, Vadim Rizov & Sarah Clyne Sundberg

Contributor: Hayden Childs

Film Threat Unveils Frigid 50 of 2008

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 20:30:00 GMT

As we enter the final weeks of 2008, there can be no doubt that the season of listing is upon us. Exhibit A is today’s unveiling of the 2008 edition of Film Threat’s annual hatchet job, The Frigid 50: The Coldest People in Hollywood. (As a former Threat-er myself, I mean “hatchet job” in the most loving way, of course.) “Unlike those other lists that brown-nose their way into some pampered celebrity's good graces, the Frigid 50 is a written declaration of who or what in Hollywood needs a reality check, detailing the least-powerful, least-inspiring, least-intriguing people in all of Tinseltown. Before a career is over (or in some cases, immediately after), it finds itself sitting in Frigid 50 territory.”

So who made the cut this year? Hit the jump for a few choice selections.

Some of FT’s calls are fairly obvious. For instance, M. Night Shyamalan earns a berth for continuing “to burn audiences with arty, overly indulgent films that fail to entertain, let alone intrigue or frighten. The Happening was supposed to be his artistic comeback, but it was his worst movie to date (and no one thought it could get worse than The Village)." No one can be surprised to see perennial punching bags like Mike Meyers or Nicholas Cage on the list.

There are a few surprises, however. For instance, number ten is “You.” “You made Beverly Hills Chihuahua #1 for two weeks. You’re the reason we have to be frisked when we go to a movie to make sure we're not smuggling in cameras. You bring toddlers to a 10pm screening of The Hills Have Eyes. You show up late to the movie, then loudly ask questions about shit you missed because you couldn’t be bothered to leave the house five minutes early.” Wait, that was you? I have to agree, you are a real pain in the ass.

The real surprise to me – given that Film Threat founder Chris Gore has always been such a huge Star Wars fan, he found a way to write about it in the introduction to my book Hick Flicks – is number two. “We remember when it was actually ‘cool’ to wear a Star Wars t-shirt and ‘uncool’ to glue on Vulcan ears. How the times have changed. Let’s face it, Star Wars is dead. The reasons for the demise of Star Wars may be numerous, but it really comes down to three prequel films that are not only awful in retrospect, they make the original three look worse knowing the full back story. It doesn’t help that George Lucas and company continue to deliver things the fans never really asked for or don’t care about.” I for one welcome this new age of Star Wars hate.

As for the number one selection…well, it’s bound to be controversial. Check it out for yourself.

Related:
M. Night Shyamalan Straight Up, Hold the Twist
Star Bores: Five Reasons to Skip the Clone Wars

Introducing the Screengrab 24-Hour Stephen King Marathon

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 19:30:00 GMT

As a special Halloween treat for Screengrab readers, I will be prying my eyelids open Clockwork Orange-style for a 24-hour marathon of movies based on the works of Stephen King. Because I have not completely lost my mind, these 24 hours will not necessarily be consecutive. I’ll be stringing them out all week, with each entry covering roughly six hours worth of possessed cars, killer dogs and corn-worshipping children. (However, once I’ve completed the task and reported my findings here, feel free to conduct your own 24-hour-straight experiment. I did this once before for my book Hick Flicks, watching 24 consecutive hours of hillbilly horror movies – including all four chapters of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre saga then in existence. About 18 hours into it, my dog was begging for mercy and I had to switch to the Golf Channel for a few minutes to decompress.)

I’ve set a few ground rules for this descent into the depths of cinematic terror. First of all, the roster must include only horror movies. No prison flicks or coming-of-age stories or whatever the hell Hearts in Atlantis is. This is a Halloween special, after all, so I need giant rats and werewolves and shit like that. Secondly, I eliminated any movie I’m very familiar with – The Shining, Carrie and Stand by Me, to cite the most obvious examples – as well as anything I’d seen in the past decade or so. That includes recent fare like The Mist, 1408 and Dreamcatcher, as well as the movies I watched for this High Hat piece on the state of Maine as depicted in King’s works. I didn’t want to be able to cheat and go by memory – although it’s not like any of you would really know if I did, anyway. Still, the integrity of the process must not be compromised, and since there are so many King movies out there, it wasn’t hard to limit myself to stuff I’ve either never seen or saw so long ago, I barely remember.

With all that being said, tune in tomorrow for Part One of the Screengrab 24-Hour Stephen King Marathon!

Fantastic Fest Review: “Not Quite Hollywood"

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 19:45:00 GMT

Granted, I haven’t seen everything, but it’s hard to believe there’s a more outrageously entertaining movie at this year’s Fantastic Fest than Mark Hartley’s “Ozsploitation” documentary Not Quite Hollywood. Virtually the entire history of the Australian film industry from its inception in the early ‘70s to the rise of home video in the late ‘80s is crammed into its 110 minutes, with a decided emphasis on drive-in fare over gauzy period pieces. And what drive-in fare it was – based on the evidence here, the Aussie exploitation movies were faster, cheaper, gorier and downright crazier than their American counterparts.

In the beginning, there was no Australian film industry outside the occasional international production such as Age of Consent with James Mason. With the introduction of the R rating in 1971, all of that changed. It began with lewd and crude sex comedies like The Adventures of Barry McKenzie and the very popular Alvin Purple series, featuring Fosters-swilling Outback yahoos getting it on with large-breasted, very nude women. By the middle of the decade, these movies had given way to action and horror pictures, most of them little-known in America. Aussie Roger Cormans like Brian Trenchard-Smith and Antony I. Ginnane churned out exploitation films with titles like Turkey Shoot, The Man from Hong Kong, Dark Age and Dead-End Drive In.

Apparently there wasn’t much in the way of regulation and oversight in those days; as we learn from interview subjects ranging from Barry “Dame Edna” Humphries to – of course – Quentin Tarantino, the makers of these films had few qualms about staging car crashes on public roads or setting their actors on fire. The stuntmen were up for seemingly anything, as you can see in the trailer below. (The official Not Quite Hollywood site has a number of vintage trailers for these films as well.) As with the Corman factory, a number of “respectable” filmmakers got their starts in Ozploitation, including Simon Wincer, Bruce Beresford and of course, George Miller. A few productions had sufficient budgets to import an American star or two, such as Stacey Keach and Jamie Lee Curtis for Roadgames and (most memorably) Dennis Hopper for Mad Dog Morgan.

Admittedly, this subject matter is right up my alley. As I never fail to remind you, my book Hick Flicks: The Rise and Fall of Redneck Cinema (which makes a great Halloween present) deals with the Southern-fried drive-in movies of the ‘70s and ‘80s, so watching Not Quite Hollywood was like stumbling upon a hidden mirror universe of that era. The Aussies even have their own word for redneck – “ocker” – and certainly a fetish for automobile culture to rival our own. (They also have spectacular, desolate locations, great accents and funny words like billabong and didgeridoo, and for these reasons and many others, I plan on catching up on some of these movies by launching a new weekly Ozploitation series here at the Screengrab, starting this Thursday.)

Not Quite Hollywood isn’t perfect – for all its encyclopedic breadth, it barely touches on the Aboriginal actors in Aussie cinema – but it’s a raucous, informative and often very funny roller coaster ride through a neglected time and place in film history.

Summer of '78: "Hooper"

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 17:00:00 GMT

Each Thursday this summer we’ll hop in the Screengrab time machine and jump back thirty years to see what was new and exciting at the neighborhood moviehouse this week in…The Summer of ’78! I’ve been on vacation, so this week we’re catching up on the past few Thursdays.

Hooper

Release Date: July 28, 1978

Cast: Burt Reynolds, Jan-Michael Vincent, Sally Field, Brian Keith, Robert Klein, Adam West

The Buzz: “It just ain’t summer without Burt!” (That is, assuming Jimmy Carter is still the president.)

Keywords: Stuntman, Driving Backwards, Rocket Car, Bar Fight, Person on Fire

The Plot: Sonny Hooper (Burt Reynolds) is the greatest stuntman alive, but some fear he’s getting a little long in the tooth. His latest gig is doubling for Adam West, star of The Spy Who Laughed at Danger. (The notion that West would be headlining a big action movie as late as 1978 is one of Hooper’s more implausible elements.) During a barroom brawl at the Palomino, Hooper bonds with up-and-coming golden boy Ski (Jan-Michael Vincent), who is also working on the film. They develop a friendly rivalry on the set, with each trying to top the other with ever more outrageous stunts. This does nothing to help Hooper with his escalating dependence on painkillers, nor his deteriorating relationship with long-suffering girlfriend Gwen (Sally Field). Hooper’s doctor informs him that one more big jolt could paralyze him for life, but that doesn’t stop Hooper from taking on a risky rocket-car gag that could end his career. Take a wild guess if it does.

The Test of Time: Who knew what a cornucopia of embarrassing admissions this Summer of ’78 feature would turn out to be for me? I’ve already copped to owning novelizations of all the Omen movies as well as the Heaven Can Wait Fotonovel, but I can probably top all of that with the admission that I also had the Hooper soundtrack album. At least Smokey and the Bandit featured songs by Jerry Reed; the title track from Hooper is performed by someone named Bent Myggen and is perhaps the only song in recorded history to feature the line “Set him on fire, it will amuse him.” Of course, this latest revelation of mine comes as no surprise to the bazillions of you who keep copies of my book Hick Flicks within reach of your toilet seats. (And if you aren’t one of them, why not buy a copy today? Come on, people, I’m currently ranked # 1,090,823 on Amazon. Help me out here.) As far as the Burt Reynolds/Hal Needham southern fried ouvre goes, Hooper falls short of Smokey but finishes far ahead of Stroker Ace and the Cannonball Run collection. Allow me to quote myself from my magnum opus: “What sets Hooper apart is its insider’s view of a working class subculture within the motion picture industry. The stuntmen are a tight-knight group, clowning around on the set and playing bumper cars on the freeway en route to their favorite watering hole. They know they’re the workhorses of the picture, but even though they’re basically blue collar guys, they’ve got show biz hearts. They do impressions of stars like Jimmy Stewart and Gregory Peck to crack each other up, and get together to drink beer and watch their stunt reels for the thousandth time. There’s an improvisational spontaneity to such scenes; a “morning after” sequence in which Reynolds and Brian Keith slowly roust themselves from hangover oblivion is particularly well-observed.”

Quotable Quote: “I'm gonna find the guy who invented Zylocaine and kiss his ass on Hollywood and Vine!”

2008 Equivalent: This is a tough one, but I’ll give it to Hancock. Like Burt in the '70s, Will Smith is our current Mr. Summer, with a similar “It’s me, your buddy!” persona winking through every role. Plus Hancock is a two-syllable character name title starting with H – just like Hooper!

Previously on Summer of '78: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

All-Night Bigfoot Movie Marathon

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 18:00:00 GMT

We’re all about the new and exciting features here at the Screengrab, so here’s another one for your dining and dancing pleasure. Those three of you who have succumbed to my repeated shameless plugs for my book Hick Flicks may recall the 24-hour hillbilly horror movie marathon I inflicted upon myself and my four-legged life partner Maury the Wonder Chibeagle in the interests of cinematic scholarship and medical science. I don’t think I have another 24-hour marathon in me, but I’m willing to pull the occasional all-nighter in the interests of furthering my research and edifying you in the process. Let’s kick it off with a subject near and dear my heart: Bigfoot movies.

As you three Hick Flicks readers may also recall from the book, the 1970s were the heyday of Sasquatch Cinema, but the last year or two has seen an unexpected revival of the genre. After spending the night with a handful of the latest Bigfoot movies, I think I’ve figured out why. Take, for example, Primal (not to be confused with the recent creature feature Primeval, which I initially did), a video cheapie that appears to have been shot entirely on location in director Steffen Schlachtenhaufen’s backyard. I’m going to speculate that Schlachtenhaufen won a Chewbacca costume in a sci-fi convention raffle, and this provided all the inspiration necessary – in fact, all the inspiration to be found, period.

12 midnight. The first rule of creature features: conceal your critter as much as possible, preferably not revealing more than the occasional fin or eyelash for the first hour or so. Schlachtenhaufen breaks this rule less than two minutes in, when we spot the guy in the wookie suit squatting under a tree. Two hikers have wandered off the trail, a development that doesn’t sit well with Bigfoot, who proceeds to eviscerate them. At least, I think that’s what happens. It’s a little hard to tell because Schlachtenhaufen piles every chintzy video effect imaginable onto the scene, from a ‘scratchy film’ overlay to a psychedelic light display straight out of a 60s LSD movie.

12:30 am. Some semblance of a plot has emerged involving a group of surveyors who are unwittingly (I think, although this is never clarified) scouting a wilderness area for a big oil company. At a nearby ranger station, a young woman and her schlubby boyfriend are visiting her estranged brother, the creepy ranger who likes to be left alone. Pathetically, the one-room ranger station with its hand-drawn sign is the most elaborate set in the movie.

1:15 am. Bigfoot makes what must be his sixth or seventh attack in Primal, and we’re still no closer to finding out why he’s so upset. Maybe he should move to a less populated area. In the end, the oil company sends another set of surveyors into the area, which is sure to make him cranky all over again. But it’s time to move on.

1:30 am. Our next feature is The Long Way Home: A Bigfoot Story, and so far it makes Primal look like a masterpiece of crisp storytelling, tight editing and lavish production values. The director is James “Bubba” Cromer, a South Carolina attorney turned independent filmmaker. After ten minutes I’m ready to throw myself on the mercy of the court. An old woman is screaming about how her chickens have all been killed. This goes on for quite some time.

2:00 am. It turns out that Cromer himself is playing a failed Miami Herald reporter who returns to his hometown to investigate reported Bigfoot sightings. But what he doesn’t know is that his friends have staged the sightings using a gorilla costume, in order to lure him home; they hope the Bigfoot story will revive his career. This is actually a somewhat promising plot, and it has the advantage of explaining why the creature looks so fake – a problem most Bigfoot movies never overcome.

3:20 am. The plot may have been promising, but the executive is dismal. The Long Way Home plays more like a collection of outtakes than a coherent narrative – it’s all long, single-shot scenes of poorly improvised dialogue delivered by non-actors, a few of whom happen to be interesting characters who aren’t well-served by the process. On the Myspace page for the movie, Cromer lists his influences as Ed Wood, John Waters, and Charles B. Pierce (director of The Legend of Boggy Creek), and his movie is an eerily accurate composite of all three sensibilities. Maybe that sounds too much like a recommendation.

4:10 am. Here’s a change of pace: The Sasquatch Gang (originally titled The Sasquatch Dumpling Gang – no, really), a family-friendly flick in the Napoleon Dynamite mold. A band of young SCA geeks find tracks and a mound of poop in the woods, leading them to believe Bigfoot is in their midst. Justin Long co-stars as their hockey-haired neighbor. (Curiously, this is Justin Long’s second Bigfoot movie in recent months, as he also appears in Strange Wilderness, which sadly was not available on DVD in time for this marathon.)

5:00 am. This really is a Napoleon Dynamite wannabe; not only is Jon “Uncle Rico” Gries in the cast, but Napoleon himself, Jon Heder, has a cameo, and director Tim Skousen was the first assistant director on Dynamite. Sasquatch Gang has a rewinding narrative structure and a couple of good gags, but it’s mostly a lame revenge-of-the-nerds story, and most importantly THERE IS NO BIGFOOT IN IT. There is Carl Weathers as a Bigfoot hunter, but that simply won’t do.

5:45 am. We’re wrapping things up with Sasquatch Mountain (although the onscreen title is actually Devil on the Mountain), which stars Lance Henriksen as a man whose beloved wife was run over by a car while videotaping Bigfoot. Years later, the tape ends up in the hands of a young woman who is taken hostage by a group of bank robbers in gorilla masks. (I’m just telling you what I saw, folks.)

6:30 am. Either Sasquatch Mountain is competent, or it takes on the sheen of competence when viewed at the end of a long night’s worth of Bigfoot’s Funniest Home Videos. Whatever the case, I am reminded yet again that, while I always think I like Bigfoot movies, that doesn’t often turn out to be the case. Somewhere in my head I have this notion of the perfect Bigfoot movie, but I’ve never seen it in real life. Sort of like the creature itself, I guess. It must be time for bed.