MICROBUDGET MASSACRE 4!
Yet Another Look at New Indie Horror...

Oranges: Revenge of the Eggplant is a drama, a love story, a comedy, and a war movie---- starring fruit! It’s made with good old-fashioned non-CG puppetry, using oranges, apples and bananas that have expressions hand-painted on their faces. These guys compare their film to South Park, and wish they had that show’s budget. So I waited to watch Oranges until after my root canal, under the influence of some good painkillers. I figured if it weren’t funny under those circumstances, it never would be. Well, it was fine silly fun - it’s not non-stop hilarity, but it had its’ moments. Full of bad puns, sight gags, and silly asides (“hot little piece of rind”), it’s obviously a labor of love, as this must have taken forever to make. My favorite would be the many shots of characters (fruit, remember?) getting shot, squished or otherwise split open. Love to have a best-of reel, maybe on the next edition. It’s not rated, but the things they do to fruit in this movie would make it rated R if they were done to people, but I think it’s probably OK for kids to watch aside from a few (off-color?) jokes. The humor is mostly of the silly “Eggplant walkin’” variety. The villain is an eggplant, white people appear to be oranges, blacks are apples, and middle easterners are bananas. “Are you a fruitist?” someone asks. The “vegetarian” mayor (a head of lettuce) is caught eating a salad. Lots of gunplay, vomit, and zombies ...and all done with fruit. From www.tempevideo.com.

I Pass For Human is a film with a wonderfully simple premise: A girl loses her boyfriend to a heroin overdose. Before he died, he spoke of seeing ghosts of recently OD’d friends. She starts using dope, and before long, starts seeing dead junkies, including her boyfriend, who all hang around to feed off the highs of living dope fiends. First-time director Chris D. (frontman of the long-running punk band The Flesheaters and a excellent film historian) makes a moody film that features roles from some of his friends, including punker Texas Terri, cult icons Mary Woronov and Spider Baby director Jack Hill, among others. The depiction of drug use and spiraling addictive behavior are spot on, and the unknown leads manage to pull off their roles realistically, and the Hollywood setting adds to the story’s irony and familiararity. Above all, the film seems well written—crisp, realistic, and without a wasted moment. To his credit, the parallels between addicts and vampires (and actors!) are obvious enough that D. doesn’t feel he has to hit us over the head with that particular point. An unusual mixture of addiction film and horror movie, with violence and sex that are welcome but never feel gratuitous. Recommended. From http://www.arcanumentertainment.com.

The Red Skulls is a horror film by the young brothers Luke & Andy Campbell, shot around Kent State, Ohio. Somewhat of a gang/zombie film hybrid, I liked the story, even if I didn’t quite ever buy the Skulls, a group of the filmmaker’s meanest-looking friends. (These alternageeks are supposed to be the big bad gang in town?) Acting skills vary widely among the cast. Most are of the bad but earnest and hard-working variety that somehow appeals to me. The smug bearded smoking guy who becomes leader of the gang is really really annoying, but at least he has a strong presence. Brother Luke was the tall guy who played the lead; ironically I liked his blank, almost not-there performance. Female lead Ruby won’t be nominated for any acting awards but is easy on the eyes. On my first viewing attempt I didn’t dig the film; thought the gang plot device was dumb. The tattoo guy subplot is not that rewarding, and the film runs a bit long. It doesn’t get going for me until we get past the dumb gang politics and one of the punks steals some industrial fluid that turns them into zombies. By the end, when they finally rumble with the cartoonish pack of miscreants in the rival gang, I was quite enjoying myself. Low budget ingenuity and the sheer volume of blood won me over. Blood gushing, spraying, and dripping. Moody synth music soundtrack reminded me (in a good way) of John Carpenter. Fun badness, with ridiculous dialogue and creative kills aided by decent special effects. Kills: throat slitting, intestines pulled out, severed limbs, blood splattering, not to mention creative use of hedge trimmers. From our friends at www.tempevideo.com.

Softcore silliness, Pervert! is really pretty bad. It’s comic book framing, vivid colors and “wacky” sound effects are meant to evoke an earlier time, nudies in general and specifically the Russ Meyer films. Mary Carey is round and curvy enough to be a Meyer heroine (one character calls her a “bootylicious beeyotch”), and no worse an actress, but her California surfer persona always seems to break your suspension of disbelief, like she’s just about to laugh, or she’s waiting for the break to dart just out of frame for a cigarette and a bong hit. The story has to do with son James, a compulsive masturbator, who comes back to the farm and is seduced by his dad’s hussy white trash live-in girlfriend. The dad, by far the strongest actor and very evocative of Meyer’s dirty old man characters, also has a meat sculpture hobby. Dad kills Mary and also her successor, his next hooker girlfriend (or so we think), and another woman comes to investigate. This film rapidly clangs schizophrenically from one extreme (blood spray and gore) to another (obvious fart and booby jokes). Claymation of a certain body part that detaches itself and kills. Oops, did I spoil it for you? Like a train wreck, almost all the jokes fall flat, and it’s amazing that someone actually had to think this up and convinced talented people to put their hard effort into this misguided mess. Memorable mechanic with Deliverance subtext is played with gusto by director Jonathan Yudis. The film is dedicated to Meyer, and obviously owes a great debt to him. Several scenes directly reference his films, like the old man in the rocking chair on the porch. Available from www.tlareleasing.com

-Eric Bradner