Here's a very strange film, the back story of which must truly be fascinating. Apparently produced with the co-operation of a small local theatre in some backwoods burg, Red Desert Penitentiary tells the story of an up and coming screenwriter traveling to the location of his first feature film shoot. He hitches a ride with his lead actor (James Michael Taylor, who also supplied the score) and the two engage in a series of misadventures and recreations of old film scenes. Written and directed by French anti-auteur George Sluizer, whose next film would be the huge art-house hit Spoorloos (The Vanishing), this film feels like a product of the 1970s: there are echoes of The Last Movie and Two-Lane Blacktop, amongst others. The acting is uniformly amateurish, but the result is oddly satisfactory. A true example of the lost art of independent film-making, Red Desert Penitentiary is no lost classic, but it will hold your attention.
Review of Red Desert Penitentiary
