As we near the close of the Scarecrow Video Psychotronic Challenge, finding a movie shot in Seattle was a real, well, challenge. I didn't want to do something easy, like Practical Magic, which isn't really a psychotronic film either. And I'd already posted about Fear, The Changeling, Class of 1999, Ghost Dad and The Night Strangler, so I really wanted to find something left of center.
Enter Shredder Orpheus.
Made more than thirty years ago about a future that has never happened, this is a group of skaters and musicians that created something that has never been created before or since, a skate-rock opera.
Skateboarder/guitarist/revolutionary Orpheus and his gang of skaters must go from the Gray Zone into, well, Hell itself to save the world and his girl from the threat of television. Beyond showing a snapshot of Seattle's counterculture - which would be its culture, right? - of the past, this movie also features a soundtrack created by Roland Barker (Ministry, Revolting Cocks), Bill Rieflin (Ministry, King Crimson), poet/performance artist Steven Jesse Bernstein, guitarist Dennis Rea and multi-instrumentalist Amy Denio. Robert McGinley was the auteur behind this movie, writing, producing, directing and starring in it. He's still making cyberpunk films, as he put out Danger Diva in 2017.
How many post-apocalyptic skater industrial takes on the story of Orpheus and Eurydice are you going to find? Probably, well, exactly one. I'm sure that if you live in Seattle and don't have a copy that Scarecrow probably has more than one available for rent.
Enter Shredder Orpheus.
Made more than thirty years ago about a future that has never happened, this is a group of skaters and musicians that created something that has never been created before or since, a skate-rock opera.
Skateboarder/guitarist/revolutionary Orpheus and his gang of skaters must go from the Gray Zone into, well, Hell itself to save the world and his girl from the threat of television. Beyond showing a snapshot of Seattle's counterculture - which would be its culture, right? - of the past, this movie also features a soundtrack created by Roland Barker (Ministry, Revolting Cocks), Bill Rieflin (Ministry, King Crimson), poet/performance artist Steven Jesse Bernstein, guitarist Dennis Rea and multi-instrumentalist Amy Denio. Robert McGinley was the auteur behind this movie, writing, producing, directing and starring in it. He's still making cyberpunk films, as he put out Danger Diva in 2017.
How many post-apocalyptic skater industrial takes on the story of Orpheus and Eurydice are you going to find? Probably, well, exactly one. I'm sure that if you live in Seattle and don't have a copy that Scarecrow probably has more than one available for rent.