Vampires are back -- and LIVING AMONG US -- in Brian A. Metcalf's new mockumentary

Don't even for a moment think of comparing LIVING AMONG US -- the new film that attempts to offer a faux documentary look at the home of a family of vampires in Los Angeles, once the bloodsuckers have been "outed" via their connection to and use of a local blood bank -- with that great New Zealand mockumentary from 2015, What We Do in the Shadows, which remains one of the best, as well as the funniest, vampire films of all time. No, this sad little undead wanna-be, which is fang-free (despite the very unreliable poster image above) is instead one of those supposedly "found footage" films purporting to show us what happens when an intrepid news crew sets up shop in the vampire home in order to show the world "the real thing."

After a short beginning that looks like it might be a relatively professional job of movie-making (giving us tons of exposition via the "breaking nightly news"), the writer/director Brian A. Metcalf (shown at left) begins pushing our don't-believe-this button over and over for his 87-minute running time. Even if you accept that these vampires would actually invite the news crew into their home as public relations stunt, you must then accept the fact that thee vampires hand out a list of ground rules (no crosses, holy water, wooden stakes, garlic, etc.), every last one of which the crew breaks -- without their hosts ever bothering to check the crew's luggage. Yes, it's that kind of dumb-ass movie.

It is also one of those films in which, although the characters being filmed ask repeatedly for the camera to be shut off, it never is. And they never notice this fact. Also, our news crew can manage to install camera equipment all around the house without its ever being detected. Wow. Yes, these must be the dumbest set of of bloodsuckers in the history of the genre. With that news crew not far behind.

The dialog occasionally rings interesting and pointed, which is a blessing, especially since some very good actors -- including William Sadler (above) and the late John Heard (below, to whom the film is dedicated) are doing what they can with the script.

The most energy and fun is provided by one of the younger vamps (Andrew Keegan, below) who gooses the movie into action whenever he appears. Otherwise, degeneration sets in early and continues throughout, until we get the de rigueur scene of running through a basement full of corpses while spouting some really awful dialog. Ah, well: I guess it's good to know that some things never change.

There is one particularly ugly scene (below) of a vampire ritual featuring a nearly nude and very voluptuous young woman (could they have found an actress with a larger set of fake tits? I don't think so) as the poor sacrificial victim. So be warned. For those of us still waiting for a good modern vampire tale, well, the wait grows ever longer....

From Red Compass Media, Living Among Us opens this Friday, February 2, at the Cinema Village, New York City; Laemmle's Music Hall 3, and other theaters across the country. Click here to view the full list of playdates, cities and venues. 

New Zealand vampires at play in Clement & Waititi's WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS

When vampires arrive in New Zealand, I guess you've got to admit that they've done it: They have finally and thoroughly covered the globe. There may have been another New Zealand-made vampire movie or two, but I think it's safe to say that there has never been a funnier one -- from anywhere on earth -- than WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS, the new comic mockumentary about a quartet of the undead who inhabit a very rundown house in some suburb or other (if I'm not mistaken, it's around Wellington, on the southern end of the north island).

The writers/directors of this sublime piece of nonsense are Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi (shown above, right and left, respectively), the guys responsible for, among other things, the cable series Flight of the Conchords, and while there have been other comic vampire movies over the decades, even the best of these don't come near the delights reached by this one.

Rather than ruin your surprise and appreciation by giving away the plot, the funny bits and all else that moviegoers should experience firsthand, I'll just concentrate on some of the reasons the movie works so well, then leave you to it. The premise, the knowing of which will not spoil a thing, involves a documentary crew invited in to film the household. This, of course, is the biggest crock of them all: No self-respecting vampire would ever OK something like this. The film's title, in fact, belies it completely, else they'd have called the movie We Live in the Bright Lights of the VideoCam. So you must simply stomp on your disbelief and go with the premise. It's worth it -- just to meet and spend some time with these guys.

How these four -- plus the couple of additions they add along the way -- manage and scramble the typical vampire's life and concerns makes for pretty consistent hilarity. The filmmakers certainly know their vampire lore and how to upend it with humor and surprise. They also understand the important of creating unusually rich and rounded (for this genre, anyway) characters for each of their four roommates and their two new friends.

While each fellow has his special and often spectacular characteristic, it's Mr. Waititi (above) as our host and sort-of narrator/guide who proves the most delightful. How he manages to capture so much charm and sweetness, as well as the sadness about what a vampire has to do (below), adds up to one of the great performances of this or really any other year. It's original and memorable.

Mr. Clement plays his character, Vlad (below), as the sexiest of the bunch, and does a number of nice turns along the way, while the the other two flatmates, Deacon and Petyr,  plus new arrivals Nick and Stu add to the oddity and jest.

Petyr is an ancient Nosferatu type (pictured in the second and third photos above, and at bottom), while Deacon has a difficult time keeping up his part of the bargain (which entails his doing the dishes -- which look to have been sitting in the sink for eons). Nick (a recently "turned" vampire) and Stu (Nick's best friend and a mere human who is tolerated by our boys for reasons that become funnier and funnier as the movie progresses) join another human enabler named Jackie (I believe she is what is called a "familiar") who has been promised eternal life but is beginning to wonder if she's ever actually going to get it.

In so many of these would-be comic vampire tales -- from the Polanski debacle to Love at First Bite and Dracula: Dead and Loving It -- the humor is occasionally funny and always obvious. Here, it bounces off what we know and expect, instantly becoming something new and different -- used in a manner that relates hilariously well to the way we live now.

How do vampires prepare to dress up and go out, since mirrors won't work for them? What happens when they go clubbing but must first be invited in before entering that club?

Oh, yes, and what about those werewolves? What We Do in the Shadows puts utterly to shame the used-to-near-distraction "rumbles" of those tiresome Twilight movies. I can't go on, or I'll start giving away even more. So just hie your little tush to the nearest theater showing this treat, or see it soon via VOD or streaming.

From Paladin and Unison Films and running a swift 86 minutes, the movie opens this Friday, February 13 in New York City at the Landmark Sunshine Cinema and in Los Angeles at the Arclight Hollywood. It hits another dozen cities the following week. Click here and scroll down to see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters.

Clement and Waititi, by the way, will be doing personal appearances in both NYC and L.A. -- at NY's Sunshine on Friday, Feb 13 after the 7 and 9 pm shows, and in L.A. on Sat. and Sun. after the 7:05 & 9:40 shows.

Whew! Robert Nathan's LUCKY BASTARD is one hot found-footage/porn-thriller/mockumentary

As found-footage/porn-thriller/mockumentaries go (and, yes, this is the first of this kind of genre mashh-up we've seen), LUCKY BASTARD -- the funny, nasty, scary, and a little too believable movie from first-time director Robert Nathan (better known for writing and producing successful television), who co-wrote his film with Lukas Kendall -- is the sui generis find of the month, maybe the whole year. It grabs you from first frame onwards, has a cool surprise immediately in store, then becomes, by turns, humorous, satiric, ugly, scary and very suspenseful.

Misters Nathan (shown at right) and Kendall (below) appear to know a bit about the porn business (or have watched the right movies to learn) and so they manage to both send it up and take it into a realm we've not yet seen on screen. The movie never loses that faint, sometimes rather heavy, scent of the sewer as it moves along (which, given the kind of climate in which most pornography is produced, seems fair enough), even as it implicates viewers from beginning to end in our own desire to watch something forbidden, sexy and transgressive.

Yet it also succeeds rather well in all of the genres it jumps: the satire and comedy of mockumentary, the thrills and suspense that all good what'll-happen-next? movies provide, and maybe just a tad less so in that lately overused found-footage area (even though there are many hidden cameras in the home used for porno shoots and reality shows in which the movie-within-a-movie is shot, you may still question how certain filmed sequences came into being). But that last genre turns out to be the least of it. Most viewers will appreciate Lucky Bastard purely as a hot little porn thriller-cum-mockumentary movie.

Nathan and his crew have cast the film quite well, too. Every last actor seems both real and entertaining as they go through their paces: fucking, filming, and finally becoming victims. (The film begins at its end, with the police arriving on the scene, and then goes back in time, so you'll pretty much know what you're in for from the outset.)

The story here tells of the Lucky Bastard porno web site, in which each month one paying member on the site is chosen to have actual sex, filmed of course, with its triple XXX star, Ashley Saint (a very good job by Betsy Rue, shown above). This month's "winner" (nicely portrayed in slow-burning degrees of disintegration by Jay Paulson, below), is a young man named "Dave," who seems to understand the importance of being Ernest.

The crew and other actors are well delineated by performers who both look and seem "real" while adding that extra kick that good actors always provide. These include Catherine Annette (below, right) as an up-and-coming, would-be porno star; Lee Kholafai (at right, two photo below) as a current hunk on the porno circuit; Chris Wylde as the goofy cinematopgrapher; and Lanny Joon, and the good-guy jack-of-all-trades on the set. They all play decent and sometimes rather charming characters, so you'll miss them as they begin to disappear.

The film's best performance belongs to actor Don McManus (above, left) as the porn director and owner of the web site, whose avarice and smarts combine to make this guy a user of remarkable skills. He may be the one character you'll feel gets what he deserves. The others serve as rather sad bystanders, accidental victims of the kind of surrogate sex that our society so skillfully serves up.

Lucky Bastard may leave a distinctly sour after-taste in your mouth, but it's a very well made piece of dark, nasty entertainment. The movie -- from CAVU Pictures and running 94 minutes -- opens this Friday, February 14 (gosh, for Valentine's Day!) New York City at the Cinema Village and  and then in Los Angeles on March 7 at Laemmle's NoHo 7.

Note: opening weekend personal appearances at the Cinema Village will include:  Friday,  Feb. 14 at 7:15 with filmmaker Robert Nathan & executive producer/co-writer Lukas Kendall;  Friday, Feb. 14 at 9:30, introduction by filmmakers;  Saturday, Feb. 15 at 5:00 & 7:15 - with filmmaker Robert Nathan & executive producer/co-writer Lukas Kendall; Saturday, Feb. 15 at 9:30 - introduction by filmmakers; and  Sunday, Feb. 16 at 5:00 & 7:15 - w/ filmmaker Robert Nathan.

Say hello to the hybrid mockumentary: Victor Quinaz's BREAKUP AT A WEDDING

We've seen documentaries, we've seen mockumentaries, we've seen hybrid documentaries, and now it's time, I guess, to welcome the hybrid mock-umentary BREAKUP AT A WEDDING, the new whatzit from filmmaker Victor Quinaz. Just what is a hybrid mockumentary? Damned if I know, but this movie just seems a bit different from your Christopher Guest model, or last week's overblown version, Colossus, or any other kind of "mock" I can easily recall. Blatantly a fiction film, it still appears to be a documentary posing as as reality while clearly being unable to reach that precious plateau -- even as a fake "reality" movie.

Mr. Quinaz, shown at right -- who acts as director, co-writer, one of the film's producers and even has an acting role in the movie -- is handing us the notion that he's been hired to capture a couple's wedding on video (by now we know this routine very well, though the film that does it best, oddly enough, is the terrifically frisky, funny zombie movie [REC] 3), even though the twosome has decided (due to the bride, not the groom, who is nicely played by the filmmaker's brother, Philip Quinaz, below, left) that it is not actually getting married but will instead "fake it" for the relatives and guests.

How they do this and what ensues makes up most of the movie, which is relatively funny and sometimes charming but more often proves just a little bit off both base and key.

If you notice the photos above and below (this isn't fair, of course, but they are all I've found to use), you may detect a bit of a strained quality in the expressions on hand (particularly that of the bride, played by Alison Fyhrie, above and below). There's a sense here of trying too hard, and it seems to infect everything from writing to direction to performance.

Sometimes things come off well enough, at least, to allow us to sit back and enjoy. But more often that "pushing" sense occurs and we tighten up in expectation of, well, too much. This is not the best way, I think, to enjoy a comedy. But here, we must take to so-so with the good.

Comedy itself is one of the more difficult genres to get anything approaching agreement from audiences. One man's laugh is another man's lack of. I suspect there will be enough of the former to make this movie at least an OK experience. The "wedding" takes place on one of those multi-venue propositions at which several couples can marry at the same time on their own turf. My favorite section had to do with how to steal your liquor from an adjoining festivity (and if that festivity offers a "Star Wars" theme, all the better).

Breakup at a Wedding, from Oscilloscope Films and running, even at only 85 minutes, a bit too long, opens this coming Friday, August 2, at Brooklyn's IndieScreen theater, with one of the most famous of its producers -- Zachary Quinto -- appearing at select screenings for Q&As. The film was also released onto VOD and digital channels earlier this summer (and may still be playing there, if you're couch potato-inclined).

Mark Hendrickson's COLOSSUS? Well, it's colossally long -- and thuddingly obvious

Don't know about you, but if TrustMovies had to pick a genre of film in which it's really difficult to get things right, that would be the mockumentary. Yes, This Is Spinal Tap did it early on and relatively well (though not nearly as well as its reputation might imply), and Christopher Guest has made some very funny examples (hit and miss, I grant you, but much more of the former than the latter). Even a clever, unusual and relatively classy moc-doc like the recent Battle of Pussy Willow Creek still proved a little too long for its content and humor.

Now comes COLOSSUS, which begins with a newscast announcing the death -- shot by multiple gunmen -- of a major entrepreneur named Clark Larson, who has long operated out of Russia but who may be from the United Kingdom, since he speaks with a British accent. As played, and pretty well, by the film's writer/director Mark Hendrickson, this guy appears an impressive, if rather obvious, scam artist. His latest scam, which apparently has led to his untimely demise, is creating an "artificial rock band," whatever the hell that is. (No one here seems to know.) That accent, we soon learn, is as phony as everything else about Larson, for we see him alert his current crew to the fact he's really an American. He then bounces back and forth between Brit and non-Brit accents, depending on with whom he is conversing, for the remainder of the movie. This is sort of impressive, but also sort of "so what?".

From the start right through to the film's final shot, we see Larson scamming, and in the most predictable ways.  He's married and has a child (seen above), and has a former wife or mistress (below), with whom has had another kid, and he quickly cons his current and very young "squeeze" out of her apartment so he can use it for the film he is making about this artificial band.

Larson scams crew members, musicians, everyone with whom he comes into contact, in his own especially crass and pushy manner. Are we surprised by anything we see or hear here? Not in the least. One wonders if Hendrickson is new to the movie game? Oh, this is indeed his first film (according to the IMDB), but what I am asking is, has the guy ever seen any other movies? If so, does he not realize that his film is about as been-there-done-that as possible, given all that's come before?

Well, maybe it is I who have simply seen too many movies at this point. Because I had almost zero patience for anything I encountered in Colossus, having already encountered it time and time again. Worse, the mockumentary goes on (and on) for two hours and fifteen minutes. This is unconscionable -- particularly as most audiences will be able to see everything coming well before it clunks its way onto the screen. (That's the would-be, drug-addled songwriter,above)

Hendrickson's film nods to politics and history but in the most simple-minded manner. According to the IMDB, the budget here is estimated at $1,300,000. One wonders if this money came from current Mother Russia, as exemplified by her sleazy son Putin and his gang, since the film finally exemplifies everything that today's Russia stands for: money, power and nothing else. (Which is pretty much what the U.S. now stands for, too, but of course we haven't yet grown the balls to admit it.) But is the film satirizing this state of affairs -- or honoring it?  Hard to say.

In terms of "style," Colossus is competently enough handled most of the time, though Hendrickson's use of split screen when deals are made or arguments fester (above) is simultaneously clunky and not particularly revealing.

When everything's a scam -- wives, kids, girl friends, musicians, deals, the filmmaker, his accent -- we quickly lose interest and have no reason to remain involved. People talk and talk and talk some more, but we don't care or finally even listen. And we certainly don't laugh much: This is failed comedy, too. Even the music, which is purported to be real, proves only so-so. Unless you are very new to film itself, Colossus may come close to the most tiresome two-and-one-quarter hours in your movie history.

Hendrickson's opus opens in New York City this coming Friday, July 19, exclusively at the Quad Cinema, after opening in Russia last month at The Sergey Kuryokhin Contemporary Art Center in Saint Petersburg. Further playdates? Don't know, for I could not find mention of any future screenings on the movie's website.

In person at The Quad!  Filmmaker Mark Hendrickson 

is said to be appearing daily after each screening of his film. 

So, if you have questions, show up and ask. 

But I would check the Quad's schedule closer to 

the performance you plan to attend, just to make sure.  

THE BATTLE OF PUSSY WILLOW CREEK: Wendy Jo Cohen's mockdoc does Civil War, Gays, Blacks, Asians and women up proud

So where were all the "others" during our much-vaunted, -heralded, -written-and-filmed-about Civil War? Over the past 12 months alone, we've seen Lincoln, Saving Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter, and Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies hit theaters (or in the case of that last one, DVD). Hell, these films even manage to include fantasy/horror elements like vamps & zombs before dealing with the contribution of the GLBT community, Asians, Blacks and Women Warriors to the cause of saving our great Union and thus America itself. Well, folk, this great wrong has now been righted by the new and awfully endearing mockumentary THE BATTLE OF PUSSY WILLOW CREEK, from first-time, full-length-film filmmaker Wendy Jo Cohen, pictured below, who is much better known as a producer.

No less a documentary filmmaker than Ken Burns is on record as loving this movie, and it's easy to see why. Not only does it send up oh-so-sweetly and gently, the kind of documentary that Burns specializes in, it does this with the sort of skill and stealth humor that has you believing (almost) what you're hearing one minute and then suddenly guffawing the next. If you did not already know that this was a mockumentary, I am not sure you wouldn't watch most of it in a state of blithe, if a little uncertain, credulity. This is thanks to the film's writer/director and her ability to parrot so spectacularly well the kind of talking-heads-cum-historical-photographs documentary we've seen so much of over the past couple of decades (with which Mr. Burns has so often graced us).

Ms Cohen is spot-on in her use of these "talking" heads (above and below), often accompanied by heavily in-motion bodies, and in her and her cinematographers' ability to create ancient-looking photos that are probably composites and/or who knows what else.

There is quite a bit of fun to be had, too, in her decision to give us the story of all these outsiders -- star-crossed gay military men (above and a below)...

a China-man divided between the practice of military art and laundry (below)...

a simply fabulous tale of a Black man (below) totally unaware of slavery and his own state of being, who ends up bizarrely serving the cause...

and a dear female child (below) who goes, Dickens-like, from poverty to orphan to prostitute to cross-dresser to one-armed vigilante in search of her nasty pimp. Oh, the woe!

And the fun! These tales are told us by "experts" who often disagree, making the information we learn all the more enchantingly screwy. So, is there a downside to all this? Yes, but it's not a deal-breaker. The movie has even more in common with the work of Mr. Burns: It's too long. Not by all that much, but clipped judiciously of 10 minutes, it would have been absolutely aces, I suspect.

As it is, it is still a lot of good fun. Particularly for mockumentary fans, and especially for those "others" who themselves reside (or have had progenitors) in any of the aforementioned camps. It is also a prime choice for those who know and love these historical documentaries and don't mind a little fun being made at the docs' expense. God knows, if Mr. Burns can love this one, you all should be able to, as well.

The Battle of Pussy Willow Creek (running 96 minutes, in black-and-white and color) opens tomorrow -- Friday, March 1 -- in New York City exclusively at the Quad Cinema. I would hope it will play other cities soon. If so (or if not), it will certainly make its way to DVD, VOD and streaming eventually.