A fantasy documentary? Matthew Bauckman and Jaret Belliveau's KUNG FU ELLIOT qualifies

Some documentaries seem utterly fueled by the necessity to be born, to take shape, to... appear! Some of the best docs that TrustMovies has seen this year -- Code Black and The Internet's Own Boy, as well as the about-to-open 20,000 Days on Earth and Art and Craft certainly qualify for that description. They -- and their subjects -- are either so strange, important, vital or necessary that it would seem they simply must see the light of day. And so they have. On the other hand comes along a "maybe" documentary such as KUNG-FU ELLIOT, with a subject (that guy of the title) so unbelievable, if kind of creepy and phony that, you wonder, after a time, if you are not seeing another faux/mock piece of work like Exit Through the Gift Shop -- but without even half the smarts and appeal that Banksy brought to that little film.

As directed and "written" by a couple of Canadians -- Matthew Bauckman (at right) and Jaret Belliveau (below) -- who've worked on a number of other films, Kung Fu Elliot is one of those how-dumb-can-people-come? documentaries that beggars belief almost from the first scene, as we meet a fellow named Elliot "White Lightning" Scott who is supposedly a champion Canadian martial artist. While his martial arts moves couldn't fool even my grandkids into believing he's anything like "the real thing," our two documentarians appear to believe the guy or

at least take his word on faith. After a short while, the viewer can't help but wonder why. Is this a case of making fun of one's subject for the entertainment of the arthouse/doc film masses (not all that numerous in any case)? Or are our two Canuck moviemakers actually dumb enough that they believe Elliot? (I am told my the movie's publicist that they are definitely not.) Either way, an intelligent viewer is going to be given almost immediate pause. Yes, Elliot is kind of fun in his fairly stupid, can-anyone-be-this-dumb? manner, but we've already seen this semi-cynical stuff a number of times previously, and it doesn't take long before our laughter rings a little hollow.

Sure, Elliot, above, has a kind of reverse charisma with his so-so body, semi-attractive face and minimal understanding of martial arts. But the deeper we and the moviemakers get into the guy's "plan" -- to make a DIY martial arts thriller called Blood Fight that will set him on a course to become Canada's first movie action hero -- the less possible it all seems. While one can draw some cheap humor from this by laughing at folk not smart enough to realize their weakness, one can also begin to feel "used."

Meeting his girlfriend Linda (above), a lady who has a sour puss for the entire length of the movie (it only grows more sour, for good reason, as the months pass), and his seemingly duped co-actors, one of whom is shown below, only adds to the questionable "fun."

When, at last, the movie turns darker, wise heads will be murmuring, "Finally!", as we move into the home stretch. Once the film has arrived at its conclusion, with the expected update on what happened to the various folk we've just seen, a number of ideas will be jostling for space and importance inside your head, self-delusion chief among these.

Except there may be no self-delusion here at all. Elliot has known all along of what he's is and is not capable. Note the scene when we see him clad in just a pair of tight underwear, as he adjusts his cock and preens a bit. Later he notes that he's got the equipment to do porn films but maybe just not the interest.

There may indeed be some surprises here, but not, I think, for the seasoned film-goer. What has remained on the filmmakers' cutting-room floor may be even more interesting that what we have already seen, and it is difficult to believe that Messieurs Bauckman and Belliveau were not unaware of what kind of fellow they had in tow from pretty early on in the game. While it is eventually clear that we cannot trust our Elliot, I unfortunately have some doubt about trusting these filmmakers, too.

Kung Fu Elliot, a kind of fantasy documentary that runs 88 minutes, has been playing the festival circuit for the past year or so, and will soon play at the soon-to-begin Fantastic Fest, so take note, those of you in the Austin, Texas, area. Next comes the Raindance fest in London. To see where else this film will play (or has played), simply click here and scroll down.

The vampire genre wakes to exciting new life with Clif Prowse and Derek Lee's AFFLICTED; Q&A with these two multi-talented filmmakers

As dead-in-the-water as so many new zombie movies prove, the vampire genre hasn't exactly broken much new ground of late, either. Which makes AFFLICTED, the knock-your-socks-off new film from the Canadian duo Clif Prowse (below, left) and Derek Lee (below, right), all the more noteworthy and exciting.

This exceedingly smart combo of hand-held DIY movie-making and the horror genre proves both shockingly "real" -- this is a brilliant use of "home movies" to create a world of horror and wonder -- and a simply splendid handling of DIY to bypass a big budget and still produce the shock and awe genre fans demand.

Not being a filmmaker myself, TrustMovies doesn't quite understand the technical details of how the pair managed this so well. But they surely have. Beginning with a wonderful planned vacation to be taken by these two best friends, the pair then guides us through the paces of the early stage of that vacation -- with a little surprise tossed into the mix (Derek has a health problem) and then suddenly shifts into a whole new mode when one of our heroes is attacked and left for dead.

Except he's still alive. So he and his partner -- and we -- begin a journey that we've been on many times previous. The magic of this movie is due to how new the filmmakers' journey seems, while still adhering closely to the necessary genre conventions. And the "hand-held" nature of the whole adventure just makes it all the more immediate and scary.

There are times here when your heart will race and you breath will stop because you are so with what's going on that it will seem like you're watching the first movie of your life all over again. The filmmakers keep a nice balance, too, between storytelling, special effects, and effective pacing. Best of all, they save some of their really good stuff for the last so that the finale does not disappoint. In fact, it takes on a whole new idea for the Vampire genre -- one that I think might make an entire movie unto itself (spoiler just ahead): What if vampires chose their victims with an eye toward creating a better world?

In dividing up the work, Mr Lee gets the lead role, and he gives it all he's got (which is plenty). Mr. Prowse, as the "best friend," hangs back and provides support (up to a point). Both men are credited with direction and screenplay, and in the short Q&A below, they seem to answer easily together and for each other.

Although this is one of the few genre films to which I'd welcome a sequel, it seems the guys (see below) want to move on to other things. Well, at least they've given us one hell of go-round here. Afflicted -- another interesting movie from CBS Films, a distributor whose choice of material seems to be getting smarter and better, film by film -- opens this Friday, April 4, in various cities. The film will also be simultaneously available via VOD, and this is a movie that'll look just fine on your living room widescreen TV (that's the way we watched it, in fact.)

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Because the interview below contains a heavy spoiler, I'd suggest seeing the film first -- always a good idea -- before reading any more about it (here or elsewhere). In the short phone interview below, TrustMovies appears in boldface, while Prowse (shown below) and Lee (further below) are in standard typeface.

You're Canadians? 

Yep – from Vancouver.

How did the idea of this film first hit you. And which one of you?

We were making short films for about 10 years and decided it was time to make a feature. Initially, it was way too much money for what we wanted to do. So we had to scale down and go back the drawing board and think, "How could we actually do this?"

We thought about different genres: zombies, and some other ones, then we said, How about a vampire documentary? Yes! We knew vampires are so fantasy-based and yet so part of pop culture, so we thought, if we could tell our story through a reality lens, how great would that be?! Something like this might normally cost $5 to $10 million. We knew that Chronicle had cost $15, million. Ours cost, in Canadian dollars, $318,000. We first got a $200,000 grant from the government. so we had to raise $118,000 ourselves.

I’m really impressed with how well the hand-held, Blair Witchiness works with this genre -- making the special effects that much more special because they're so jumpy and odd and unexpected. Did you realize this going into it? And isn't it so much cheaper to create special effects in this manner? 

We figured that this would work well, combining these genres.

As to the cheapness part, we knew we had to be very sparse when we showed stuff on camera. What got us so excited about this movie was to tell a vampire story through a lens of reality, where the very texture of the image is telling your brain, this is real life. So Derek -- running so fast, and lifting the car and all that -- feels like a supernatural event. Yet it is shown in a way that just seems real.

That’s what happens to all of us when we watch a film, but until this one (even considering how effective Chronicle often was), we haven’t gotten it in such a “real-seeming” way. 

My one disappointment: Aren't pedophiles getting awfully tired and over-used as the villains du jour? For the sequel, will you please rid the world of more important problems. Like Republicans. Or maybe climate-change deniers and politicians who want to gut Social Security and food stamps. Please: get brave and current. Or, since you’re Canadians, go after the mayor of Toronto. You can do it! (The guys laugh.)

It’s funny, as a moral choice for the character, we needed to make it an easy choice. So we probably did go the too-easy route. But Cliff and I have talked about the philosophy of who a vampire might choose to kill to keep himself alive. So we did have discussions over this.

How did you decide which character would get killed and which would be the vampire hero?

We always knew that Derek would be the vampire, but he needed to have a foil. "Oh, perfect for Cliff!" That’s how it worked out.

If you don’t do a sequel, what’s next for you? 

We’re looking to do something different next time. Yes, we want to do something more cinematic, that delivers what we have always loved about movies: the chance to use music, dolly shots, and cast actors whom we can direct -- instead of ourselves. We’ve got in mind what we call an action film in a horror world. And it’s also a love story which could be fun. We get to play with everything we love – from the music to the camera to a great story and cast….

Well, good luck with whatever you do, and I wish you great success with this excellent first-full-length feature!

V/H/S: Found-footage, hexagonal horror movie (six directors), will scare you shitless

If you follow my reviews at all closely, you'll already know that I am not a big fan of hand-held camera-work, supposedly "found footage" (dat ol' Blair Witch agin!), and a lot of the other stuff that goes along with DIY movie-making. That said, if ever all the annoying-to-unnerving techniques used to "create your own movie" have managed to work together, often brilliantly, in one weird film, that would be V/H/S. This new compilation scare-movie, using six different directors and telling a bunch of jumbled-together tales, proves at once supremely old-fashioned and absolutely up-to-the-minute in the way it pulls us in, alternately amuses, bores and scares the bejeesus out of us, then finally kicks us into oblivion. All using the tried-and-true -- along with the brand-new.

I am now going to do something I almost never have done: using the film's press release to describe the framework here. "In V/H/S, a group of misfits are hired by an unknown third party to burglarize a desolate house in the countryside and acquire a rare tape. Upon searching the house, the guys are confronted with a dead body, a hub of old televisions and an endless supply of cryptic footage, each video stranger and more inexplicable than the last...." I do this for you because I found the framework the most confusing part of the film and probably would not have understood much of the above from what I saw in the film itself.

Once I got into the individual stories, however, I could -- sometimes barely -- get my bearings enough to enjoy what was going on. If this sounds off-putting, don't worry: It works better than you'll imagine because confusion is actually part of the enjoyment here. When we're off balance, the only slightly scary can become much more so.

Other than the wrap-around framework, there are five stories contained in the film. While some work better than others, not a one falls flat and at least a couple are supremely creepy. The directors include, from beginning segment to end, Adam Wingard (A Horrible Way to Die), David Bruckner (The Signal), Ti West (The Innkeepers), Glenn McQuaid (I Sell the Dead), Joe Swanberg (Alexander the Last) and Radio Silence. (That final "name" is actually a group made up of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett, Justin Martinez and Chad Villella, so I guess you could properly say that this movie has nine directors.)

Bruckner, McQuaid, West and Wingard all have bonafides in the fright department; Swanberg, who doesn't (though some people find his films horrors of a sort), fits into things perfectly well, while the Radio Silence guys, reasonably new to film-making, come through just fine. I'll leave each plot for you to discover, but will say that, for sheer off-balance fear, Bruckner and the Radio Silence Boys got me where it hurts. Ti West, of all people, manages to scare us on a deeper psychological level, with Swanberg (below) one of the stars in his segment.

Not all of this 93-minute movie works, but when it does, it has you, one claw around your throat, the other caressing your balls. And as annoying as those hand-held moments can be, I think you'll agree that, over all, you ain't seen nothin' quite like this one.

V/H/S, via Magnolia Pictures' Magnet division, opens Friday, October 5, all over the country, in a limited release and in a surprising number of cities. In New York City, it will open at the Landmark Sunshine Cinema, and you can take a look at all other currently scheduled playdates (with cities and theaters) by clicking here. Meanwhile, as is often the case with Magnolia's movies, it has already been playing via VOD for nearly the past two months.

Eduardo Sánchez's LOVELY MOLLY scares a bit & stars an impressive Gretchen Lodge

The new film from Eduardo Sánchez, the co-director of The Blair Witch Project, begins with a bit of near-horror -- a crazed young woman video-camming herself while holding a knife to her own throat. Then we shoot back in time to her wedding and slowly work our way toward to the present once again. This sort of approach ensures that we know immediately we're in "scare territory." Hardly subtle, it does prime us for things to come. Come they do, helped along in no small measure by the superlative sound effects (Matt Davies) and the music (by Tortoise), which, in its way, seems just another, odder sound effect.

Ever since Blair Witch, TrustMovies has had it in for movies that are mostly self-video-cammed. It just seems to him too cheap and easy (and boring) a manner in which to film. It has its occasional uses, however, and I am happy to report that Mr. Sánchez (shown at right) only descends to this technique now and again during the film. Yes, his movie involves mostly hand-held camerawork, but that annoying little red "rec" light isn't always on. (This clever-once-but-once-only technique worked best in [REC], less so in its offshoots.)

Post-wedding, our twosome (Gretchen Lodge, above, left and Johnny Lewis, right) moves into the house formerly occupied by her family. Mistake: as we (and they) soon learn. Our heroine, Molly, has no excuse for not knowing this from the beginning, and unless this character has it in for herself (ah,but she does, she does!), there's little logic in choosing this house as the spot to set up housekeeping. But they do, and from night number one, complete with the requisite things that go bump, they -- and we -- get a little scared.

So much of these scares are provided by sounds, so fraught are the faces of our couple as they listen and try to ascertain, and so creepy is the house itself that the filmmaker sets up a highly economical premise that initially works better than any of the other recent scarefare -- Silent House, The Inkeepers or Insidious. For awhile, at least.

The movie also manages to reflect the state of our current economy (he's a long-distance truck driver, she works cleaning/maintenance in a large office building in the nearest town); nobody's doing well financially. The backstory of Molly and her family comes out slowly and relatively believably in dribs and drabs at the same time as something/someone takes hold of our heroine. The gears mesh rather well -- if rather obviously -- and then....

Yuuuch. Just more of the usual. Possession may be nine-tenths of the law, but I would say it constitutes an even larger percentage of the horror movies we see. Around the midway point it becomes clear that the filmmaker and his movie are vamping -- i.e. killing time with repetition and more-of-the-same antics until he can hit the 90-odd minute mark and bring the movie home.

Along the way, we do get a few good scenes -- one of these during a Sunday Church service that is strangely and un-showily, as scary as anything else in the film. When Pastor Bobby (a creepy Field Blauvelt) makes a house call, and Molly pulls a Sharon Stone, things move quickly into overdrive. Ms Lodge does a yeoman job here, moving from sweetie-pie newlywed (above) to a one-woman Psycho Bitch Party (below). She even gets a humdinger of a full-frontal nude scene, which she handles like a pro.

Lodge is well supported by Mr. Lewis and by Alexandra Holden (below) as her troubled, implicated sister. Nice touches occur along the way -- how this possession initially takes hold -- and the violence is well-chosen and handled as much for suspense and shock as for blood and gore (though there's plenty of that, too). Overall, though, as good as some of its pieces may be, Lovely Molly finally offers maybe 60 minutes of content in a long, 99 minutes of movie.

The film opens this Friday, in limited release, in various parts of the country. Visit the film's web site or click here to learn where -- and how to get tickets.

All photos are from the film itself, except that of Mr. Sánchez,

which is by Kim Hairston, courtesy of The Baltimore Sun. 

The collaborative effort/short-film trilogy SWINE is very much worth your while

One of the biggest (and often best) surprises TrustMovies encounters is getting an unsolicited email, asking if he would be willing to view some new (usually DIY) film project. Obviously these projects range from good to so-so to not-so, and lack of viewing time now and again prevents me from accepting the invitations. But whether I've just been lucky so far, most of what I’m asked to watch has been worthwhile on some (sometimes many) levels. So it was with SWINE, a project so well-done and so much fun that it proved one of the best DIY projects I've so far encountered.

This is a trilogy of short narrative films connected by plot and characters that takes place in a post-apocalyptic USA in which the powers-that-be (which looked and sounded to me like the Bush-Cheney regime gone completely over the top), have produced who-knows-what-kind-of holocaust and turned our populace into near slaves who'll do anything for a dollar. (One such is the concubine, Beauty, above, played by Catherine Annette.) A rebel faction is bent on toppling the evil power, but this faction is itself so wound up, paranoid and sometimes out-and-out, back-stabbing sleazy that who you can trust becomes the all-important question.

One early morning last week, with my coffee and oatmeal, I stuck the DVD into my player, sat back and sipped as I watched. I was hooked from the outset. Swine is good -- smart and wild and sometimes witty, and done with a level of surprising professionalism that allows you to relax, not worry "Will this measure up?" and immediately get involved in the story. The Swine crew (above) certainly knows how to get the most out of its small special effects budget, too. Their effects are excellent, used sparingly but smartly. The dialog is smart, too. And the cast (below) handles it professionally, with no one falling below a certain level and often rising nicely above it.

The lead actor (Gregory Lee Kenyon) talks with a half-whispered Clint Eastwood kind of voice that works well because what he has to say is intelligent enough that you don’t worry about the timbre of his voice. Full of careful editing and quick cuts that speed things along, the first episode pulls you in immediately (remember the opening line about suffering at enemy hands as opposed to those of your own: it pays off). The first episode sets things up, the second introduces new characters -- the hunky stranger on horse-back! (below, left, and off the horse) -- but don’t get too attached to anyone, as people die suddenly and quickly here. The catch-as-catch-can costuming, too, seems nicely appropriate and not without some charm. Part three (each episode runs between 12 and 17 minutes) throws a real monkey wrench into the gears -- which makes things more interestingly off-kilter and work ever better.

Swine is primarily old-fashioned, good fun but given a nicely modern, dark update -- more adult and complicated in its way than any cheap-jack, simple-minded Star Wars clone (the original, after all, was pretty simple-minded, but certainly not cheap). My verdict? I’m hooked on Swine, and will keep watching as long as its makers keep producing. But, please, when will we be able to see more?

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To answer that question, and to find out more about this new "trilogy," TrustMovies talked with its executive producer, Koren Young (below). In the following conversation, TM appears in boldface and Mr. Young in standard type.

Do you consider SWINE a DIY Project (I would)?

Yes, absolutely. In this case, we didn’t have a whole lot of resources at our disposal. We wanted to create a film that looked professional but didn’t cost a lot. And we did it!

You sure did. Seemed to me, as I was watching, that the film didn’t look cheap at all. I was surprised! I also felt that Swine had this interesting sense of doing stuff that might look typical -- like the usual apocalyptic scenario, coupled to a bit of a Star Wars kind of feeling -- but smarter, cheaper (of course!) and with a darker mind set.

True. You’ll notice that in many movies, the main villain is really ugly and the hero is always nice to look at. This is, of course, not true in real life. We love beautiful villains (one of Swine's is exemplified by the character Bollinger, played by Drew Hinckley, below) and started writing them as early as 2003 in our first production together, A Damsel in Disguise.

So you’ve worked together before?

Our crew has worked together many times before. We went our separate ways for a while, but reunited for this project.

Where did you -- and the rest of the cast and crew -- come from?

Santa Clarita, California. We all graduated form the Radio, Television and Film program at College of the Canyons in Southern California. Santa Clarita is within that "30-mile zone" for L.A. film production, where you don’t have to pay for extra mileage for cast and crew, so a lot of projects get shot around here.

How long has your Arcay Studios been around? And where did the name come from?

I started making movies when I was a kid and my brother Ryan was a musician. He started doing post audio for my student films, and he’s since worked on a lot of big films from Invictus to Super 8. He and I founded Arcay Studios together in 2009. The name is a play on the studio's address and our first initials.

The team that made the Swine Trilogy formed Well-Oiled Machine. Our cinematographer and editor, Brad Hoffarth (above) works with the San Francisco Art Institute’s film program, and he did all our special effects. Our writer and director, Daniel Levitch (below, center), is an established comic book writer. Our assistant director, Kyle Maki, has been a producer for Time Warner Cable for several years. Our producer, Matthew Chastain Bowers is also a paralegal that drafts our contracts. Really, everyone involved has worked in the industry in different ways, and so each brings to the project his or her own special skills.

How many people have seen your work now?



It’s hard to say. We’ve shipped out a couple hundred DVDs, and the YouTube Channel we created has gotten around 2,000 hits. Here’s a little secret, which we mention on the web site but which most people wouldn’t necessarily figure out. We started the whole project as just a short single film that we shot for fun. We had such a phenomenal reception at the first preview screening that we decided to make more. The third film in the series is actually the first one that we produced, but because of how it ends, we decided to add two new chapters to the beginning. We’re currently working on an additional prequel, and then we’ll do a continuation that follows chapter three.

How much did the three films cost, so far?

The existing trilogy was made for less than $15,000

Wow -- that’s pretty good for what’s up there on the screen! I’m wondering how and why must the public watch Swine only in small chunks? (As a reviewer, I’m lucky -- and got to watch all three episode, once after another.)

We've purposely uploaded the episodes in 3-4 minute chunks to encourage people to buy the DVD.

How much are you charging for the DVD?

We have different levels of contribution (it’s all "contribution" at this point): For $25, you get an autographed DVD. Right now we’re just fund-raising for the upcoming two or three episodes. At that point we would have a feature-length DVD, which would make distribution easier.

Anything else you want to say, while I have you?

Our DVD also includes an HD digital copy that you can copy to iTunes or any portable media player.
And if you want any further information, or to learn how you can best view SWINE, go to our web site www.swinemovie.com

Thanks for your time, Koren, and for this really fun and entertaining series. And good luck in obtaining enough money to make those other two or three episodes. I -- and I’ll bet most of the folk who’ve so far viewed the series -- are very eager to watch some more.