Wild Zero is not a movie. It is an experience, an in your face, melt your brain piece of pure crazy. The kind that makes my wife say, “Do we really own this?”
Yes. We do. I’m going to buy it again just to have it twice.
Ace is our hero, Guitar Wolf’s biggest fan. After he saves the band from a tense standoff with The Captain, an evil music executive, he becomes blood brothers with Guitar Wolf himself (the other members are Bass Wolf and Drum Wolf) and receives a signal whistle for whenever he is in trouble.
Guitar Wolf is so great that flames come out of their mic stands and they blast the crowd with lightning when they play. They sound like fuzz and noise and menace. They are everything perfect about rock and roll.
On his journey to the next Guitar Wolf show, Ace meets Tobio, a Thai stranger on the run. He saves her from a robbery then leaves, but on the road he encounters zombies. Realizing that he’s in love — and inspired by the spirit of Guitar Wolf — he goes back to save her.
There’s a lot of other shit that happens. The Captain comes back to fight Guitar Wolf with a grenade launcher (which Guitar Wolf shrugs off, only pausing to tune his guitar). There are zombie fights galore. Many, many heads explode. A naked military girl kills zombies from her shower. Oh yeah — and Ace finds out that Tobio is really a guy, a fact that this movie celebrates. Yes — instead of making jokes, the spirit of Guitar Wolf tells Ace that “Love has no borders, nationalities or genders! DO IT!” Keep in mind this movie was made nearly twenty years ago, so this is pretty amazing.
Everyone finds love. Ace and Tobio find it. Two kids find it even after becoming zombies. Guitar Wolf and his bandmates find it for rock, roll and beer.
Oh yeah and Guitar Wolf plays Link Wray’s “Rumble,” then takes the headstock off his guitar and cuts a UFO in half.
I can’t say anything else. If that sentence doesn’t make you watch this movie, you are dead to me.
The Chattanooga Film Festival is happening now through June 29. To get your in-person or virtual badge to see any of these movies, click here. For more information, visit chattfilmfest.org and follow us on Facebook,Twitterand Instagram.
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to violence, the word and the act. While violence cloaks itself in a plethora of disguises, its favorite mantle still remains… sex. Violence devours all it touches, its voracious appetite rarely fulfilled. Yet violence doesn’t only destroy, it creates and molds as well. Let’s examine closely then this dangerously evil creation, this new breed encased and contained within the supple skin of woman. The softness is there, the unmistakable smell of female, the surface shiny and silken, the body yielding yet wanton. But a word of caution: handle with care and don’t drop your guard. This rapacious new breed prowls both alone and in packs, operating at any level, any time, anywhere, and with anybody. Who are they? One might be your secretary, your doctor’s receptionist… or a dancer in a go-go club!”
You know how I always say, “They could have stopped making movies after this?” This is the movie at the center of my argument. I really don’t know how any movie gets any better than this, unless Russ Meyer is directing it.
The three worst women you’ve ever met — and also the finest — finish their dance routines at a club and then head out to the California desert where they race their car and verbally abuse one another. They are Billie (Laurie Williams), Rosie (Haji) and Varla (Tura Satana, perhaps the finest thing Satan ever made for the Lord). They follow that up by sizing up the guy mansplaining things to his girl and snap his neck before drugging his woman, Linda (Susan Bernard).
Stopping to fill up, they learn that a wheelchair-bound man and his feebleminded son are literally sitting on a treasure. So they do what you or I would do — manipulate, manhandled and murder everyone in their way.
Originally known as The Leather Girlsand then The Mankillers, this isn’t a movie as much as a religion to me. No less a cultural giant as John Waters said, “Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! is, beyond a doubt, the best movie ever made. It is possibly better than any film that will be made in the future.”
Tura Satana is the kind of woman that if she wasn’t born, we would have created her and made her into a goddess. There have been many pretenders to her throne, but none will ever ascend it.
Seriously, I wore the t-shirt of this movie for most of the 90s before it fell apart. If you dislike this movie, we can never, ever be friends.
This played in person at CFF. You can watch so many of the movies online by buying a pass on their website. I’ll be posted reviews and articles over the next few days, as well as updating my Letterboxd list of watches.
Named in honor of the wild collections of short genre fiction curated by the luminary author Harlan Ellison, CFF’s Dangerous Visions block has long been the dark heart of their short film program each year, and this year, there were too many fantastic horror and sci-fi shorts for a single block to contain them so they’ve expanded things to include our virtual SO LONG AND THANKS FOR ALL THE DANGEROUS VISIONS block. No summer spent at Camp CFF is complete without the heaping helping of HOLY SHIT that are these two blocks!
13th Night (2024): Directed by Benjamin Percy, this is a film all about the lengths a father will undertake to save his daughter, who has become ill with a chronic condition. It starts with the subtitle “sounds of murder” and we see a man taking a Polaroid photo of someone he has killed via s shovel to the throat before cutting to the title.
The long haired man who did the killing comes home to his daughter, asleep in bed as cartoons play on the TV. He has a massive arsenal of bladed weapons, just as she has an array of prescriptions near her nightlight. He falls asleep after drinking — and checking the locks to the basement — before discovering that all of the locks have been removed. A strange man in a suit and American tie appears, says “Hello, Jacob. It’s time.” He passes the demonic figure the Polaroid of his last murder and is told on the 13th of the next month, he must kill again. The always smiling man passes pills to him and tells Jacob that he didn’t promise a cure for his daughter, but he did tell her that she will have a heartbeat. However, their arrangement can end tonight if he wants his daughter to die.
Then, the demon appears to his daughter and Jacob knows that he’s stuck in this arrangement.
This short has some confident camera work, gorgeous lighting and really solid sound design. In fact, I’d love to see this become a full length feature, as it feels like there’s so much more of the story to tell. You can learn more on the official site.
Butterscotch (2023): A young boy (Reid McConville) spends several moments in a nursing home tormenting a man (Clifford Deeds) who obviously can’t move and may not be aware of what is happening around him. As the child whistles and waves in front of his face, we notice that the entire room is blue and the only other color is provided by the comic book red hue of the kid’s hair. He steals a piece of butterscotch candy from the man — I’ve often heard only old people like this candy, so I must have been old my whole life — and then notices that the senior citizen is sticking his tongue out at him and bugging his eyes. I won’t spoil what happens next in director Alexander Lee Deeds’ short but sometimes, people get what they deserve.
Hi! You Are Currently Being Recorded (2023): Kyle Garrett Greenberg and Anna Maguire directed and wrote this short, which stars Maguire. She plays Anna, who is visiting a new lover in Los Angeles. We notice that her kitchen has wine and weed, which she uses before she goes out the door and talks on the phone with a friend, discussing how easy it is to get lost here, how everything feels so extra. Before too long, all the neighborhood watch signs seem to come alive and the idea that everyone is filming her becomes too much to bear. This takes the horror in the mundane, the everyday and shows how we can feel like an alien within our own world, even if it’s just in a different city. I once got lost in Tokyo trying to make a pay phone call and couldn’t remember which of the many similar apartment buildings my friend lived in. I just wandered the streets until he found me and he just laughed. This is sort of like that and kind of like how I tried to take a video of a cute dog last week to show my wife and a neighbor — with faith over fear and Trump flags all over her house — came out and accused me to potentially stealing her dog. Have you ever tried to steal a chihuahua?
Let’s Go Disco (2024): Austin Lewis, along with writers Jake Gates Smith, Alexis Stier and Megan Stier created this tale of a woman trapped inside, you guessed it, a disco. The colors as if they’re living in a Mario Bava nightmare and the pulsing beat was enough to set my dog barking. Fog fills the air as the disco ball spins and soon, she finds her way to a table of people who know her but she has no clue who they are. She overhears stories of people getting killed by an axe murderer as laughter fills the soundtrack and even drinks being delivered feel sinister. The cab ride home is no escape either and she comes back all over again, as the girls become more violent with her, saying that she’s going to stay there and do whatever they say.
Wow. Just wow. This movie knocked me out. You have to see it whenever you get the opportunity because it looks and plays perfect, getting more done in its 12 minute run time than any film that I’ve seen go over two hours. If you’ve ever felt trapped in public, this will make your hands shake as much as it did mine. Also: So much screaming.
Accidental Stars (2024): Aspiring actress Nerissa (Madeleine Charmaine Morrell) has been attending David’s (Kyle Minshew) acting class as part of her dream of being a star. But it’s not enough and if she wants to have him love her work, she needs to be part of his private lessons. Yet all the pressure is seemingly too much for her. After all, this starts with the T.S. Elliot line from Hysteria, “As she laughed I was aware of becoming involved in her laughter and being part of it, until her teeth were only accidental stars with a talent for squad-drill.”
Directed and written by Emily Bennett, this makes the experience of acting feel like being a captive. I wonder if that’s what it’s like. I’ve found that being a writer is like having homework every day for the rest of your life, so maybe dreams kind of come true, even if you’re not ready for what they are.
Maybe I’m glad I never became an actor.
The Influencer (2023): Director and writer Lael Rogers has made a tale of a social media influencer whose dream day is being able to harvest the eyes and minds of her followers as she reaches for immortality. I mean, all those numbers on the live stream have to go somewhere.
This not only embodies the influencer characters that the characters — Ivy (Deisy Patiño), Shea (Laura Hetherington) and Madison (Mackenzie Wynn) — are all about, but the film effortlessly makes the switch over to horror with no issues, as the true influencer (Bria Condon) rises from the sea and guides the women to the sea.
Now I understand why”You all give me life” sounds so horrifying.
Pitstop (2024): A prisoner, Quinn (Emily Sweet) and a guard, Hannah (Mary Rose Branick) are stranded and out of gas. I’d say this only happens in movies, but it used to happen to my in laws all the time. The dialogue suggests that the world they live in is split between a walled-off city run by the government and a resistance who lives outside the walls. Quinn tries to reach out to Hannah and explain what she believes to be the truth, but she refuses to listen.
Quinn has been playing with a paperclip and is able to unlock her handcuffs, which causes the two to fight. As Hannah discharges her weapon, they hear a growl which belongs to a creature (Deryk Wehrley) that can embody your worst fear. Somehow, this brings the two closer or at least able to talk to one another. I really liked how director and writer David A. Flores has put together this story and I’d love to see where these two characters go next.
Souling (2023): An unsuspecting woman (Jacquelyn Ferguson, who also directed and wrote this with Jason Anders, who is one of the disturbing people who gather) finds herself at the center of an ancient Pagan tradition when she was just trying to take a bubble bath.
According to the filmmakers, this modern-day folk tale was inspired by a medieval practice that led to trick-or-treating. There’s a banquet put in front of the woman, who stares at the sack masked faces of those who have sat around her table, finally grabbing fistfuls of food and devouring it before enlightenment arrives.
While I’m not entirely sure what it all means, but I did learn that Souling was done during Allhallowtide and Christmastide. It included eating soul cakes (“sets of square farthing cakes with currants in the centre”) singing, carrying lanterns, wearing a costume, setting bonfires, playing divination games (including one that has been slightly altered to become bobbing for apples), carrying a horse’s head around and performances.
I kind of want to try Souling now.
The Thaw (2023): In 19th century Vermont, a young woman named Ruth (Emily Bennett) watches as her parents Alma (Toby Poser) and Timothy (Jeffrey Grover) drink sleeping tea in order to survive the harsh winter. They can only be awakened in the spring and she will be left alone, allowed to slaughter the sheep if she needs to. However, seeing as how this is a New England folk horror story, things don’t work out as they planned as there’s an early thaw.
Directed and written by Sean Temple and Sarah Wisner, this finds Ruth in this situation because her husband has returned her to her family. She speaks to her mother and cries, “He said I wasn‘t worth the cost of my keep.” Men are uniformly horrible to women in this, blamed for everything, including making the tea incorrectly, which keeps Alma asleep as if she were dead. Now, Timothy is filled with a hunger that can’t end and as they run out of canned and live food, he may start turning his eye to the living. Or, in the case of Alma, the asleep.
Filmed in black and white, this is stunning. Its monotone look and setting will remind some of Robert Eggers, but this can definitely stand on its own. In fact, it deserves to be its own full length feature.
Dream Creep (2023): David (Ian Edlund) and Suzy (Sidney Jayne Hunt) are asleep when she wakes him up. Someone is in their room and wants to attack her. However, they soon learn that the sounds that she hears are coming from inside her ear. The voice soon tells him that if he wakes her up, she’ll die. Well, what happens if she stays asleep?
Director and writer Carlos A.F. Lopez does so much with sound design and pacing in this. This is the kind of movie that you’ll wake up and think about as you watch your partner sleeps and hope that you never go through the horrific moments that these two do. It saves the grisly parts for the close but don’t worry. They’re coming.
You can watch so many of the films at CFF by buying a pass on their website. I’ll be be posting reviews and articles over the next few days, as well as updating my Letterboxd list of watches.
New Line was doing so well with Freddy that they thought that they could do the same with Leatherface, not realizing that while he’s the most out front member of the Sawyer Family, there is an entire brood to tell the stories about.
The final film to get an X before NC-17 was created, I will say that this movie brings the gore, even after the battle between the MPAA and New Line. I mean, the movie starts off with Leatherface taking off a woman’s face, so know what you’re getting into. Yet this was submitted eleven times for a review and most of the gore was lost; this was after the original script by David J. Schow (who also wrote the scripts for The Crow, Critters 3 and 4 and many other movies) had a naked man being literally sliced into two pieces. I assume the MPAA had more issues with seeing a nude man than the gore.
The original trailer for this might be better than the actual movie — that’s Kane Hodder as Leatherface! — but you can’t deny a movie that has Ken Foree and Viggo Mortensen in the cast. And hey — Caroline Williams shows up in a cameo as Stretch, now a reporter.
This starts off going for it, as Leatherface kills a woman and skins her face for a mask while her sister Sara (Toni Hudson, Denise in Just One of the Guys) watches. We then meet Michelle (Kate Hodge), Ryan (William Butler) and Benny (Foree), who will be menaced by this film’s version of the Sawyer family, which includes Edward “Tex” Sawyer (Viggo Mortensen), Tinker “Tink” Sawyer (Jow Unger), “Mama” Anne Sawyer (Miriam Byrd-Nethery), Alfredo Sawyer (Tom Everett) and a little girl (Jennifer Banko).
Before long, Leatherface has killed Sara — after murdering her entire family — and caught Ryan in a bear trap. Michelle is taken into the Sawyer home and saved only when Benny shoots like ten thousand bullets into it, but hey, we still have Leatherface with a golden chainsaw that has “The saw is family written on it.
Burr wanted to shoot the film in Texas using 16 mm film just like the original, but New Line turned him down, as they had already built the house in California. I mean, they also shot that trailer before they had a script or a director, so all they cared about was money. That same house was used in Alice Cooper’s “House Of Fire” video. They also wanted Peter Jackson to direct.
Benny and Leatherface both died in the original cut, but New Line shot a new ending with editor Michael N. Knue in which both characters survive after test screenings replied well to Foree’s character. Burr was shocked when he saw this in the movies, as he was never told there was a new ending.
This was also shot so close to a Six Flags that you can hear screaming all over the movie even when it may not need it.
This was cut to pieces — and not like how the Sawyers want to slice things up — to avoid an X rating. That’s why it had to be exciting to see Jeff Burr’s work print of this at CFF.
Speaking of the fest, you can watch so many of films by buying a pass on their website. I’ll be posting reviews and articles over the next few days, as well as updating my Letterboxd list of watches.
This film was described as “An exploration of one’s relationships with food, sexuality, and revenge.”
Director and writer Aimee Kuge wrote this movie while experiencing a period of disordered eating and the end of toxic relationships. That led to a movie about an introverted nerd — Mark — who finds himself dangerously deep inside the crazy world of mukbanging after he falls head over heels for a mysterious woman named Ash. She’s super into mukbanging so he finds himself getting into it.
Also: Murder.
What is mukbanging?
The term is from South Korean and means “eating broadcast.” There, professional mukbangers make up to $10,000 a month not including sponsorships from food and drink brands. Basically, they eat huge amounts of food while interacting with their viewers.
Cannibal Mukbang is one strange movie and it looks really gorgeous. I’m excited to see what Kuge does next.
You can watch this and so many of the films at CFF by buying a pass on their website. I’ll be posting reviews and articles over the next few days, as well as updating my Letterboxd list of watches.
I’m sad to see another year end at the Chattanooga Film Festival. If you’d like to help the festival — and get some cool movies every month — you can keep the film fun going by joining their Patron. Starting at just $2 a month, you can support independent cinema. At $5 a month, you can join the Double Secret Cinema Society. At $10, you get two secret movies on the 13th of every month!
Here’s what I watched this year. You can also check out the Letterboxd list.
Salute Your Shorts: Includes Stephen King’s All That You Love Will Be Taken Away, Punch the Boss, Solitude, Don’t Look Too Far Ahead, Greenhouse, After Hours, Anya, Crossing Tides, Harmonious, Netneutal, Retribution, The Businessman and Morse Code.
Dangerous Visions: Tell Alice I Love Her, Fetal Position, Glitch, No Overnight Parking, Vexed, Seaborne, Mickey Dogface, The Inverts, Splinter, Stop Dead, They Call It…Red Cemetery, Memento Moti, Stop Scrolling, Dead Enders and Gnomes.
Fun Size Epics: A Good Scream, Ringworms, Kickstart My Heart, Shallots and Garlic, Greetings, The Lizard Laughed, Black Tea, Farmer Ed, Picture Day, Canal, The Five Fingers of a Dog, Likeness, When You’re Gone, The Waiting Room, Or Eggs In Purgatory, Cafe Cicatriz, The Spirit Became Flesh and the Stewards.
WTF (Watch These Films): CONTENT: The Lo-Fi Man, Seatbelts, Don’t Let Kyle Sit Down, We Forgot About the Zombies, Variations On a Theme, FootTrouble, Gold and Mud, The Earthling, The Promotion, Vertical Valor, Foul and FIN.
Directed and written by Andrew Adams, American Meltdown follows Olivia Walker (Jacki Von Preysing), who experiences a series of unfortunate events. Her boyfriend Rich (Christopher Mychael Watson) dumps her, her boss puts her on leave to avoid paying benefits, and her apartment is robbed, all on the same day. Her boss blames unions, her property manager, Lou (Clayton Farris), blames her lack of insurance, and the cops seem indifferent. The sheer absurdity of Olivia’s predicament is both amusing and unbelievable.
She becomes friends—and later roommates—with Mari Navarro (Nicolette Sweeney), who starts their relationship by lifting Olivia’s wallet. Their eventual burglary is a humorous yet poignant response to the absurdities the heroine has already endured. Sometimes, humor can be a balm that allows us to address more serious themes. In my mind, we’re going to need more of it to get through the next several years.
It feels like no one is here for you. The majority of the day is work, then more work and the reward is often, well, more work if you can handle it. But said, “You can handle it, right?” The notion that the only way to escape late-stage capitalism is through acts of crime should be frankly terrifying instead of heartwarming, but here we are.
Olivia has to face the idea that to escape the life she’s in, she must destroy it. For so many of us, this means leaving the comfort that we’ve created for ourselves. It’s so much easier to complain and feel that momentary release than to tear off the bandages and attempt to change everything forever. This film makes you face that, but in a way that is gentle, nudging and hilarious. It has definitely made me better consider the choices that I make.
The Chattanooga Film Festival is over. For more information and to see how you can donate so that next year is even bigger, visit chattfilmfest.org and follow us on Facebook,Twitterand Instagram.
Christopher Gans has made some great movies and gets little credit. His better-than-the-game Silent Hill, Crying Freeman, his segments in Necronomicon and the incredible Brotherhood of the Wolf are among his many accomplishments.
As a student, he made this film, which pays tribute to Bava, complete with a dedication at the end. And you know, in just around 15 minutes, Gans gets it. He understands how giallo works, and instead of making the kind of modern Giallo that everyone tries these days, he crafts a film that looks bad with love and then goes forward, taking what works and creating a near-lunatic energy that feels like where you’d hoped Argento would have kept going after Tenebre and Opera.
Only two actors are credited: Aissa Djabri as Le témoin (the witness) and Isabelle Wendling as La victim (the victim). Like all Giallo directors of ill repute, one must assume that Gans is the killer or at least their hands.
Phillipe Gans and Jean-François Torrès created the music for this, and much like the visuals, it takes the sound of the form and makes it more hard-driving and powerful, while Jérôme Robert has gone on to plenty of work in the French film industry.
Folies Meurtrières (Killing Spree) (1984): Shot on Super 8 at some time in the early 80s in France, this film is 52 minutes of a killer aimlessly killing, killing and killing some more while a fuzzed-out synth soundtrack plays, the kind of music that those that say their films are “inspired by John Carpenter” but just have a neon color palette and a few keyboard songs on the soundtrack dream and wish and hope and pray that they could achieve.
Then everything changes.
And by changes, I mean the end of Maniac gets ripped off.
Look, I get it, this is a cheap knockoff of a slasher that may be bright enough to make fun of the things we accept in these films. But man, I love these lo-fi movies that want nothing more than to make their own effects and do their best to entertain you. They’re not significant movies — they were never intended to be — but they were a lot of fun to make.
I’ve heard that this movie is in the genre Murderdrone, in which “90% of the movie is people wandering around and getting murdered set to shitty lo-fi bedroom synths, and it’s increasingly hard to pay attention, but you can’t look away, and you’re stuck in a murdertrance.” This Letterboxd list has some more of those…
As for the man who made this, Antoine Pellissier, he’s a doctor now.
Possibly In Michigan (1983): Made with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Ohio Arts Council, video artist Cecelia Condit’s nightmarish short has had many lives: as an art project to help her heal from her past, as a scare tactic shown on the 700 Club and as a viral video that got shared without context and was rumored to be a cursed film.
Starting with her film Beneath the Skin, Condit uses her video work to attempt to deal with the cycles of violence that she felt were all around her and so close to her. That’s because, for a year, she dated Ira Einhorn, the Unicorn Killer, who was also one reason we had Earth Day. The entire time that they dated, the rotting body of his ex-girlfriend, Holly Maddux, was in a trunk. A trunk that Condit constantly walked past, one assumes.
It made it onto religious television because, in addition to examiningt the self-destructive behaviors of men toward women, it alsoexaminest female friendships and love.The lead characters, Sharon and Janice, may be a couple, or they may just be supportive women. Or both. Who are we to put any bounds on their relationship?
It’s become a viral sensation several times, as teens try to copy its strange musical numbers and send it to one another as a curse straight out of The Ring.
Our ladies are just trying to shop for perfume — this was shot at Beachwood Place in Beachwood, Ohio, where Condit sat outside the building manager’s office until she was allowed to shoot there; she was given twenty-minute blocks of time, which was a challenge — when Arthur begins to stalk them, a man whose face changes with a series of latex masks.
Arthur is the kind of Prince Charming who shows his love to women by hacking them to pieces; his always-changing face is a way of showing the roles that abusive men have taken in their relationships. We also discover that Sharon is attracted to violent men but also likes making them think that violence is their idea. Regardless, love should never cost an arm and a leg.
The songs, written and performed by Karen Skladany (who also plays Janice), are insidious in the way that they worm their way into your brain. This is the kind of weirdness that is completely authentic in a way that today’s manufactured social media creepypasta weirdness cannot even hope to be a faint echo of.
As frightening as this can be, it’s also a film about absorbing — eating a cannibal is one way, right? — and getting past the worst moments of life without being destroyed by them. This also lives up to so much of what I love about SOV in that while we’ve been taught that the 80s looked neon and sounded like a Carpenter movie, the truth is that the entire decade was beige and sounded like the demo on a Casio keyboard. This doesn’t nail an aesthetic as much as document the actual 1983 that I lived within, minus the shape-changing cannibal and singsong happy tale of a dog in the microwave.
Consider this absolutely essential and one of the most critical SOV movies ever.
The Chattanooga Film Festival is happening now through June 29. To get your in-person or virtual badge to see any of these movies, click here. For more information, visit chattfilmfest.org and follow us on Facebook,Twitterand Instagram.
After an early conversion from Judaism to Roman Catholicism, a year in the Merchant Marine and two years in the Air Force, he attended Columbia University on the G.I. Bill.
After graduation, his first play, The Penguin, opened Off-Broadway with Martin Landau in the cast and received rave reviews—reviews that eluded his Broadway debut, Harbor Lights. He then spent the next two decades in London, where he wrote and directed Conscience Bay and The Fledglings when he wasn’t running nightclubs—one of which he sold to the Krays—and contributing to Penthouse.
He also married 16-year-old Sarah Caldwell when he was nearly forty, which formed the basis of his script for Lola(AKA Twinky AKA London Affair), a movie in which Susan George stands in for his wife — his wife did act in his film Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter — and Charles Bronson basically played him.
As the seventies began, he wrote the Italian film 1931: Once Upon a Time in New York, AKA Pete, Pearl & the Pole, which had Tony Anthony as Pete, Adolfo Celi as the Pole and Lucretia Love as the Pearl. He also wrote the Native Americansploitation film — is there a genre? — Shadow of the Hawk stars Jan-Michael Vincent, Marilyn Hassett and Chief Dan George.
Somewhere in the middle of the 70s, he shot the second unit on the adult horror comedy Dracula Sucks, which would serve him well when he made the mainstream Frightmare, a movie that has references to the Universal Dracula.
Perhaps his most interesting film is 1984’s The Black Room, which Vane revealed to Nightmare USA based on his real life, as he cheated on his wife in his black room with Penthouse centerfolds that he met while working at that publication. It’s also the only movie I’ve ever seen where a man rents a sex room from a brother and sister-couple who may or may not be vampires.
The last few movies of Vane’s career are hit and miss: Midnight, in which he was unhappy with the final cut, which was taken from him; Taxi Dancers, a sex film shot in the same nightclub used for Club Life and You’re So Dead, made when Vane was 79 years old and never shown, as far as I know.
Vane wrote an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times in 1991 in which he confessed to how hard agism had hit him, saying, “After being dropped by William Morris some years ago, I managed to sell several scripts to studios. But in recent years, the wall has been impenetrable. Instead of disappearing, I decided to write, produce and direct low-budget, independent features.”
If you want to know more, the incredible Hidden Films was lucky enough to interview Vane before he died in 2015.
But hey — we’re here to talk about Club Life.
Cal (Tom Parsekian) is a kid from a small town with dreams of Hollywood stardom. His journey takes him to The City, a nightclub owned by the coked-out Hector (Tony Curtis), who is in debt to organized crime but also loves to watch his wife Tilly (Dee Wallace) sing. Cal’s Hollywood dream leads him to become a bouncer, learning from the seasoned Tank (Michael Parks). The film features a unique scene where Tank effortlessly dodges every move Cal makes, leading to a moment of shared laughter and pain.
The girl Cal left behind, Sissy (Jamie Barrett), has come to Los Angeles looking for him, but she falls into a bad crowd at the same time as Cal leaving behind The City, as he comes to work at a lesbian bar called Different Drummer. Sissy also sings, and her number “First Class Man” gets her both booed off the stage at the ladies-only club and also catcalled.
This movie is awash in neon and fog. It also has one of the most fantastic sex scenes ever, as Cal and Sissy work it out on a clear waterbed lit from the inside and filled with fish. This is the movie that proves to you that you haven’t seen everything.
It’s not done yet.
After Tank gets killed, during which one of the tough guys says, “The cat can’t sleep if he wants to breathe.” Cal returns to The City and tries to keep Hector safe from all his debts. Did I mention that Cal can also dance? Or that he uses — and here’s the part that might be better than the waterbed filled with sea life — neon nunchucks that get a slow-motion dance fight scene that blew my brains out my nose.
This is a movie filled with strange BDSM fog-enhanced dancing set to music by Frank Musker (who is credited on the Stardust song “Music Sounds Better with You” thanks to a sample it contains from the song “Fate” that he did with Chaka Khan), Michael Sembello (the Flashdance force is strong within this) and Terry Shaddick (who co-wrote Olivia Newton-John’s “Physical”).
Smiley-faced balloons intrude on breakups, graffiti clowns watch over overdoses, and a funeral happens inside a nightclub. It’s also shot by Joel King, whose resume includes camera work on Just Before Dawn, The Beastmaster, Carrie, Out of the Blue and Embrace of the Vampire. That should give you an idea that this movie looks everywhere. As for the wild dance numbers were choreographed by Dennon Rawles, who also worked on Voyage of the Rock Aliens and Staying Alive.
Also, Kristine DeBell shows up, and again, her career has some wild choices, from Meatballsand the erotic Alice in Wonderland to playing Jackie Chan’s love interest in The Big Brawl to being in A Talking Cat!?!
This film ends as only it can. Cal smashes the hall of mirrors where his friend Tank died and basically decimates the entire club with his neon nunchucks. He then splits the disco ball and throws his brightly colored martial arts weapon over the Hollywood hills.
You best believe I was crying.
PS: Norman Thaddeus Vane was not paid for the movie, and when it was nearly finished, he stole the film itself. He told Hidden Films, ” The movie was being edited at Consolidated Film Industries, and I went over and stole these really heavy cans of negatives and put them in the cellar of a friend’s house. And then I told our representative, “Listen, tell Guy Collins that I’m not giving the negatives back until I get some serious money.” They called the police and I said to them, “I’ve been working for this company for three months and I haven’t been paid dollar one. I’m holding the negative as a lien against the money they owe me by contract.” The police took my side. Guy’s brother came over and paid me $40,000 and said he’d owe me another $40-50,000, but I never got it.”
Florence Booker (played by Daniella Alma) is a character that many can relate to, as she navigates the complex feelings of isolation that often accompany marriage. Despite being in a relationship, she feels more alone than ever before. Her life takes an unexpected turn when she shares a cigarette with Roy (Nicholas Baroudi), a charismatic line cook. This seemingly innocent encounter sparks an affair, leading Florence to contemplate abandoning her current life in search of something more fulfilling. However, as she tries to escape her circumstances, she only deepens her sense of incompleteness and confusion.
The film, shot over the course of ten days on the lively streets of New York City by director Alexander Canepa, begins in the middle of Florence’s story, immersing the audience directly into her struggles. As the narrative unfolds, it becomes clear that Florence has a tendency to attract individuals who are emotionally needy, particularly her husband, Louis (David Edwin), who epitomizes this dynamic.
At a film festival often dominated by genre cinema, the presence of a realistic romantic comedy like this may come as a surprise. However, those who appreciate a fresh and nuanced take on relationships will likely find this film captivating and thought-provoking. With its unique blend of humor and heartfelt moments, it challenges the conventions of the genre while offering a genuine exploration of love, longing, and personal fulfillment.
The Chattanooga Film Festival runs from now through June 29. To get your in-person or virtual badge to see any of these movies. For more information, visit chattfilmfest.org and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
B&S About Movies 
You must be logged in to post a comment.