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Reviews
Voltägen (2003)
An astonishingly physical piece of work.
In a sweaty Texas bar, a customer (Tony Wolford) is surveyed by a pair of men (Justin Meeks and Reese Hunt) with sinister designs on him. This is confirmed when he wakes up in a woman's nightgown, in a remote woodland area, where he is beaten and subjected to a grisly ritual by the nasty duo, wearing Pagan garb. Subsequently, he is frazzled in a makeshift electric chair, before things get really weird
Moody, bleak and hallucinatory, the appropriately named VOLTAGEN has all the traits that made the filmmaker's longer HEADCHEESE such a visceral achievement. With rapid cutting and camera-work that pulls us into the harsh action, this might deal with extreme mental states over its eight minutes but is an astonishingly physical piece of work emphasized in no small part when Inur Jizur and Dura Celloid (the two torturers) beat the victim, known in the credits as 'Tortured Soul'. The camera doesn't watch passively while he is pummeled; instead, it whips down to follow the motion of every blow. No one who sees this film will be allowed to sit in an idle state of comfort and the image of the two pagans drawing blood from the backs of their throats by stabbing a knife through their mouth is a real jolter, that also clues us into the emphatic commitment of the attackers. Likewise (in the vein of Graves' and Meeks' other films I've seen) filmed in black and white, VOLTAGEN is all the more harsh for its stark visual contrasts of dark and light areas, and is memorable for its stylistic prowess as well as its off kilter content.
What VOLTAGEN lacks in comparison to HEADCHEESE's thorough and confrontational depiction of a diseased mind, it makes up for with ambiguity and one stunning set piece. That scene, in which oculists Jizur and Celloid fry the poor man, is a thrilling moment in extreme cinema. The electric chair itself is a wonderfully inventive collage: objects culled from the everyday a metal dog bowl (to fit the victim's head, conducting the electricity), a belt (to hold it on), and a suffocating cloth (covering his face) take on a sadistic dimension, as well as constituting the type of weird juxtaposition of mundane elements that embodies surrealism at its best. The 'voltage' is put to full use; cue some effective 'light bending' special effects as the man's skin quivers in electric vibrations. This 'tremble' effect is applied superbly, emphasizing the crackling energy that courses through the tortured soul's ravaged body. Rapid cutting enhances this truly kinetic feel, and the increasingly tight close shots emphasize waves of energy that seem ready to break through not only the man's body, but through the screen: the film's mesmerizing hold is infectious.
The end, when the film spirals into different layers of consciousness, is not only a weird piece of narrative symmetry that takes us within and then without a bizarre mind. This multi- layered treat also makes us wonder what goes through the mind of the distracted looking person who stands near to you in the local bar.
The Hypostatic Union (2002)
This highly charged work is a visual and especially aural assault.
Given its incredible and complex use of sound, which is never easy to describe or analyze, HYPOSTATIC UNION is far more difficult to write about than the previous short film. If VOLTAGEN (the filmmakers other short horror film) made wicked poetry out of images, this highly charged work is a visual and especially aural assault.
This two minute piece involving a blind man (Justin Meeks) wandering a deserted township, who sits down to be greeted by hysterical religious visions is just as edgy as VOLTAGEN in content and equally explosive in style. Who was it that said 'when the great is contained in the small its intensity becomes greater'? They were probably right. After the remarkably eerie and desolate start, viewers should not hope for it to settle down. The blind man's transition to the preacher is a shocking one, the violent soundtrack emphasizing the unappealing vehemence of his belief system. For this, sound designer Justin Baker deserves mention.
Explosive shrieking, engine noises and electronic distortions represent the Preacher's rantings, matched by Meeks' contorted facial expressions, who plays that role with fanatic zeal. With pasty face makeup and eye shadow, Meeks has the look of a silent movie actor. Indeed, there's no dialogue in this film, only visuals and sound effects, drawing further links with 1920s silent film. This cracking piece might be just a little noisier, but its strong, physical commitment to imagery including a vicious heart ripping of Jesus Christ gives it a similar potency to symbolic, surrealist classics such as Bunuel and Dali's infamous rage against the accepted order, UN CHIEN ANDALOU.
Lone Star State of Mind (2002)
Thoroughly unfunny
How do movies like this get made? Seriously, someone tell me. I think I know: when you take the average of the masses, it always equals absolute stupidity. So when bigwig producers decide on film projects, they're forced to select the sorriest excuses for "scripts" and bring them to pathetic life for all to enjoy. *gag* Then we package them and sell them to the confederacy of dunces. "Lone Star State Of Mind" is a waste of thousands of dollars and countless hours of time of all those involved. The resulting product is probably the biggest piece of cinematic waste since "The New Guy." It never ceases to amaze me how low people will go when greenlighting movie projects. Is it me or are they going lower and lower each year? There is no story here. It has no message, it has no purpose, it has no value or memorable characters or dialogue, no redeeming qualities. "But it's a comedy!" you say. Well there's certainly no laughs, either...for any educated person, that is. The laughs in this film are scant at best, mostly non existent, and downright inane. From a comedic standpoint, it misfires on just about every possible cylinder. The comedy in this movie is equivalent to the same "Three Stooges" episode on it's 1,000th loop. How many times can one laugh at DJ Qualls being slapped on the head? How many times can one laugh at the line "do you think he's gay?" How many times can one laugh at stereotypes? Plenty, if you're 10 years of age or of equal mindset. If this is supposed to be a "comedy," and fails this miserably, what are we left with? Mucus. Green mucus. And lots of it. I have an idea. Why doesn't everyone in America get a college degree so we can bring the average IQ up a few notches. That way, the movies we produce will (hopefully) improve. I pray David Semel will stay out of Texas and make his lame TV shows somewhere else. As for the writer: try harder. Shame on you for making this movie.
The New Guy (2002)
Thoroughly unfunny
How do movies like this get made? Seriously, someone tell me. I think I know: when you take the average of the masses, it always equals absolute stupidity. So when bigwig producers decide on film projects, they're forced to select the sorriest excuses for "scripts" and bring them to pathetic life for all to enjoy. *gag* Then we package them and sell them to the confederacy of dunces. "The New Guy" is a waste of thousands of dollars and countless hours of time of all those involved. The resulting product is probably the biggest piece of cinematic waste since "Lone Star State of Mind." It never ceases to amaze me how low people will go when greenlighting movie projects. Is it me or are they going lower and lower each year? There is no story here. It has no message, it has no purpose, it has no value or memorable characters or dialogue, no redeeming qualities. "But it's a comedy!" you say. Well there's certainly no laughs, either...for any educated person, that is. The laughs in this film are scant at best, mostly nonexistent, and downright inane. From a comedic standpoint, it misfires on just about every possible cylinder. The comedy in this movie is equivalent to the same "Three Stooges" episode on its 1,000th loop. How many times can one laugh at DJ Qualls falling or hurtin himself? How many times can one laugh at countless stereotypes? Plenty, if you're 10 years of age or of equal mindset. If this is supposed to be a "comedy," and fails this miserably, what are we left with? Mucus. Green mucus. And lots of it. I have an idea. Why doesn't everyone in America get a college degree so we can bring the average IQ up a few notches. That way, the movies we produce will (hopefully) improve. I pray Ed Decter will stay out of Texas and make his lame movies elsewhere. As for the writer: try harder. Shame on you for making this movie.
Headcheese (2002)
Quite astounding
Every so often one catches a relatively unexposed underground short that reeks of talent. Sharing the DVD with fellow horror movie "Freak" is HEADCHEESE, directed by Duane Graves and Justin Meeks, and it is quite astounding. Filmed on both 8-mm and 16-mm black and white film stock, this 22 minute observation of a schizophrenic serial killer, wandering desolate Texas backwoods and farmland, combines the visual excess of underground classics such as Richard Kern's SUBMIT TO ME (1985) and FINGERED (1986) and thematically resembles Nico B and Rozz Williams' PIG (1988) another movie exploring the tortured mind of a serial killer and his spiritual quest for truth.
We are introduced to side-burn sporting nomad, Legion (Justin Meeks), who wanders into a garage to buy some beers, and shades (that grant him an uncanny resemblance to Elvis just before he went on to find peace in the valley) before setting out on head trip that sees him kill an unsuspecting driver who picks him up, and traverse the barren fields, accompanied by grim voice-overs that have our psycho plead forgiveness for his crimes and launch into a series of surreal masochistic tortures (imagined and enacted) involving bondage with chains, impalement, and disfigurement via assorted objects found on the way.
The violence is conducted ritualistically and at times resembles a bizarre mix of tortures as visited upon Christ in the Chapters according to St. Luke (an excerpt of which opens the film), Satanic worship, and Elvis stage act (the scene where Legion drapes an animal skull round his shoulders and starts a bout of karate poses atop a burned out car, parodies the Memphis legend wonderfully) and is beautifully staged against the foreboding Austin lots that featured prominently in THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE.
It comes then as no great surprise that Graves and Meeks were students on TCM writer Kim Henkel's screenwriting and film production courses, and that Henkel is the producer. In the liner notes accompanying this Shock-O-Rama DVD Henkel praises the directors talents; "those boys are going places". I couldn't agree more, and all fans of cutting edge cinema should rush out and get hold of this excellent double feature presentation pronto!
Up Syndrome (2000)
Up Syndrome is one of the best (and funniest) documentaries I've seen in a long time.
Up Syndrome is one of the best (and funniest) documentaries I've seen in a long time. The subject fascinated me, and boy did it deliver. I want to applaud the hilarious and playful way director Duane Graves tackled this subject matter. So many people who haven't grown up with mentally handicapped people become very sober when you try to talk about it. The truth is some of the most funny, creative, and life-affirming people are mentally handicapped. Graves has captured that amazingly well.
I think the cutting style on the project is brilliant. The speed, the audacity of it all. Very courageous. The overall construction of the piece did wonders in hitting home all of the inner themes. Everything, no matter how insignificant, had a payoff. Yet what I saw as a deliberate structure was camouflaged in a totally free-moving, stream of consciousness style. Graves' narrative storytelling skills are fantastic.
One of his strongest techniques is to take a serious moment and undercut it with humor. For example, Rene is talking about gun safety and how you shouldn't shoot people. Then he's shooting violently into the air. I love that. On a bench he talks about the loss of his job. A very sad moment. Then he farts. That stuff is just like life. The end was quite moving for me. Rene again talks to the camera about the dangers of smoking. "You are alive." He says. The message echoes his moving speech about death, but also echoes the gun speech. Only this time he doesn't undercut himself. The message is clear. Appreciate life. Embrace what you've got. Be happy. Rene is!
Up Syndrome moved me to tears. My sister, who was mentally handicapped, died in April of 1999. Up Syndrome was a reminder of the struggles she went through and the intense happiness she felt. I wish I'd given her the chance to drive. She always wanted to.
S. Rice