It's in the Blood (2012)

Director: Scooter Downey
Stars: Lance Henriksen and Sean Elliot

This film was an official selection at the 8th annual International Horror & Sci-Fi Film Festival in Scottsdale in 2012. Here's an index to my reviews of 2012 films.

Of the three Lance Henriksen movies shown at this year's International Horror and Sci-Fi Film Festival, this was the key one and it took home the Best Horror Film award. It's an indie feature from Monomyth Films, far from the usual schlock horror, yet it landed such a prestigious name. Henriksen's co-star and screen son is Sean Elliot, who precious few had heard of until this film. He started his career in 2008 in a bit part in a sequel shot for TV, then played a little further up the credits in a couple of features. Here, he's half of what's close to being a two man cast in a film that calls for serious depth of performance, playing opposite a major actor with major experience and being responsible for half the depth. As if that wasn't enough, he co-wrote and co-produced the picture too. Given that it's a notable success, it's clear that where Elliot goes next will only depend on how far he wants to reach. His future should be very open indeed.

Elliot plays October, a man with eidetic memory who reads a medical book while hitchhiking his way home to go on a hiking trip with his dad. It's fortuitous because when he gets there, he has to put his newfound knowledge to use pretty quickly, as his father's dog, Cairo, was caught in a trap. Dad is Russell, a fourth generation Texan sheriff, but October not being the fifth is only one reason why they're apparently not very close. He hasn't lived up to his father's expectations, that's clear, but there's a more specific history between them, one obviously tied to a girl named Iris, but the details aren't immediately forthcoming. They're revealed gradually, in keeping with the psychological nature of the story. We wonder how much is external plot and how much just their history, but really it's the latter manifested onto the former. When you fight your demons, how real can they be? Here, they're very real indeed.

Initially, at least, it's clearly about the relationship. It took October a year to answer his father's call and he still isn't really sure why he did. He calls him Russell or Old Man, never Dad, and the back and forth editing as they argue ably emphasises the distance between them. Yet at points, they're still able to find common ground and connect. They can even pee together. The first long scene they share has Russell teaching October how to drive stick and it's a joyous scene, set up as a sexual metaphor. Driving stick is one of those things Russell never got round to teaching him, like shooting a rifle or drinking 150 proof, though as we soon discover, the clock is ticking. This works well. Russell, who has nothing left of substance in his life, wants to start teaching his kid the things he should have done long ago. October, who has wandered the country trying to escape from his past, is on board with that, but not one skill he uses here came from his dad.

The two sides of the film merge quickly, as they reach the woods where they're planning to hike together. Their history starts to appear in their first argument. 'Are we going to talk about what happened,' asks October, 'or are we going to keep pretending there's nothing wrong?' Russell is sure of his side. 'What's done is done,' he states. Rather tellingly, it's as this clash really begins that Russell sees something in the woods that shocks him, fires his rifle in reaction and falls off a bluff, breaking his leg very badly. Now, instead of hiking together, they share in the aftermath of this event and the one that won't stay in their past. We don't really know what that something is that's out there in the woods, because it surely isn't what we see. We're shown what Russell and October see, visions shaped by their personal demons and shrouded in metaphorical fog. 'See what you want to see,' one vision tells October late in the film and that's meant for us too.

While It's in the Blood felt very fresh on a first viewing, it didn't gel the way it did on a second, where it played far more consistently for me. The writing has depth that doesn't all surface the first time through. Certainly though, the two leads do justice to substantial, well nuanced parts. Henriksen is sorely underrated, undeservedly slighted by being perceived as a genre actor, but I've never seen him quite so deep as here. He gets a lot of opportunity to be tough, hardly a stretch for him, but a lot more to be weak too and it demonstrates how broad his range truly is. Sean Elliot may well have this part because he wrote it, but if he wasn't worthy, Henriksen would have stolen this whole thing out from under him. That he fought hard enough for the two to be seen on equal terms speaks volumes. Rose Sima and Jimmy Gonzales only exist in the back story that we see in flashback but they do fine work nonetheless.

A perennial question at film festivals asks the size of the budget, especially with indie pictures. While the revelation of a tiny sum can lead to astonishment at how much was achieved with it, it often becomes an albatross. How can a film that cost X dollars be fairly compared with a movie that cost ten times or ten thousand times as much? This is one of those films where I don't want to know, because it stands up on its own merits. Sure, I can see how nothing we see here would warrant a sizable cost, beyond Henriksen's salary, but it doesn't matter. This isn't a Corman film where we can see the limits and focus on how well he avoided spending money. This didn't need any more budget unless it was spent on a camera with a better steadicam. In fact, more money would likely mean more effects and that wouldn't have helped. This is a monster movie where the monster is even more of a McGuffin than usual. We don't need to know what it is.

It's a frequently dark film, but the lighting (or the lack of it) fits the tone. We see everything we need to see. The camerawork is annoyingly handheld at points for a non-handheld movie, but the composition of frame is very careful and artistically set, starting at the very first shot, which is of an upside down stick insect. Many subsequent shots would work well as photographs, even before movement is factored in. The effects are appropriate, whether they're the impressionistic monsters, part Bigfoot and part Grey and all freaky weird, or Russell's rapidly deteriorating leg. Elliot's cohort as writer and producer, Scooter Downey, also served as director and editor and is capable in all those roles, even though he has even less experience than Elliot. Amazingly, this is his first feature outside of an internship on a Frank Langella movie in 2005. The maturity of the film, given the lack of experience of its key players, is truly astonishing.

Psychological overlay of internal demons with an external threat isn't your usual sort of horror movie, let alone a debut. To see it superbly handled is more than refreshing. I found myself less consistently impressed by the use of October's eidetic memory though. Initially it felt like a deus ex machina, a convenient way for him to have the knowledge needed later on, but as the story evolved, it became more substantial. Russell explains to him that 'everything fades' but it won't if you have photographic memory. From that angle, trauma is a powerful thing indeed and this story an excellent framework to explore that concept. Yet October is a cutter, like someone who needs marks as memories. Why would a man who can't forget cut himself to remember? Maybe I'm not reading that imagery as it was intended, but I can't see another way to read it. It just looks cool? Surely not. Maybe there's more waiting for me in a third viewing.

Paranoia (2011)

Director: Bivás Biswas
Stars: Katherine Stewart, Tiffany Shepis, Shane Dean, James Ray and Cavin Gray Schneider

This film was an official selection at the Phoenix Film Festival in Phoenix in 2012. Here's an index to my reviews of 2012 films.

This film was an official selection at the Jerome Indie Music & Film Festival in Jerome, AZ in 2013. Here's an index to my reviews of 2013 films.

The more time I've spent watching the Arizona film scene grow, the more I've been sure a movie like this was going to turn up sooner or later, with what is on the local level something of an all-star cast. There's just too much talent floating around here nowadays for different cliques to not coalesce every once in a while, especially given how prolific a few local actors are, but this is the first time I've seen it actually happen. I recognise everyone here: the director, the writer and the actors who play every major part, even some of the supporting folk. Many of them were at this year's Phoenix Film Festival in person, not only to promote Paranoia but often other pictures as well. Quite a few of the actors here also appeared in selections from the Arizona Short Films set, and that extends to the crew too: Diane Dresback, who wrote this movie, also directed Wish Inc, which featured Paranoia's director, Bivás Biswas, as an actor.

What makes Paranoia work so well is that instead of expecting the stars to carry the picture just because they're there, like Hollywood productions have a habit of doing, it builds a strong story for them to flesh out. Dresback's script is a clever one with a great deal of depth to explore. The title is unfortunately generic, so much so that there are, on average, a couple of films a year with this title, because it's highly appropriate in this instance. While initially it's Alaina Denison who is obviously paranoid, we soon begin to wonder just how paranoid she really is and whether she's the only one. The title really applies to the film as a whole rather than just one of its characters and it doesn't take forever to realise that. The feel is supposed to come from film noir and there are certainly noir themes here, but it played to me more like a cross between a whodunit, where the story is king, and a gothic, where the minds of the characters are as important as they are.

The puzzle of the plot is understandable on a first viewing but it's just as fun on a second, even knowing all the twists, turns and revelations before they happen. In fact, a second viewing is an eye opener, as there are a large amount of cleverly placed hints that are easily missed first time through but become more obvious in hindsight. Eagle-eyed students of the cinematic toolbook will do better than others in seeing the visual cues but the red herrings are plentiful and there's enough complexity to ensure that if even if you figure some of it out ahead of time, you won't catch it all. I certainly didn't. 'When I see someone through the lens of my camera,' a character explains during the film, 'nothing's hidden. Everything's right there.' While he's being literal, and chatting up the leading lady in the process, he's really explaining the key to the film. Everything is right here for us to see, if only we look at things from the right perspective.

Of course, Dresback doesn't make it that easy for us. We begin dramatically with an ending, to which we'll return at the halfway mark, before moving forward. Something very bad has gone down, something that has to do with money and betrayal and gunshots, and once established, we're taken back three months to see how it all came about. Alaina and Mark are on their ninth year of marriage, but there are obviously problems. She's had trouble getting pregnant but has finally been accepted for expensive fertility treatment. He works a lot, but may well play a lot too, given that he flirts inappropriately with his secretary. The distance between Alaina and Mark is emphasised everywhere. It's in his words and her facial expressions. It's in the placement of characters when they meet their closest friends or when they eat dinner. It's pretty obvious that these two shouldn't be having a child together and the evidence for that keeps on building.

Alaina is Katherine Stewart, looking far more dowdy than she does as the elegant Lady Chenna in Mantecoza. It took me a long while to get used to a dowdy Kate as, even out of steampunk costume, she's so inherently elegant as a person. Mark is Shane Dean, yet again playing an ass, but I learned here that he's better at being a deliberate ass than a casual one, better at being an emotional ass than a quiet one. I'd suggest that it's the skinhead that leads him to this sort of typecasting, but then James Ray is just as bald and he gets to play a nice guy. He's Ben, a quiet cop and doting father, married to Sherry, which is a neat role for scream queen Tiffany Shepis, obviously enjoying playing a different sort of character for a change. These two couples are long term friends and they account for four of the five leads. The fifth is Cavin Gray Schneider, who is Jason, a fresh employee at Mark's solar company, yet another opportunity for Mark to be an ass.

And as the title suggests, the rest of the first half is an exploration of paranoia, most obviously manifested in Alaina believing that Mark is having an affair with his secretary. She does have good reason to suspect, after all, and frankly he couldn't dig more holes during the argument that erupts when she brings it up if he tried. Then, as we catch up to where we started and we discover that it was Mark who was on the receiving end of those gunshots, we find that the end only brings a new beginning. We quickly realise that what we've seen thus far may not be the truth, it may only be a perspective of the truth. Everything is suddenly open to interpretation, except for a single fact: Mark is dead and somebody shot him. Now, even if we weren't doing so already, we have to pay close attention to all the detail to figure out what's real and what isn't, not to mention who killed Mark and why. It's refreshing to find that this is a challenge.

I enjoyed Paranoia on the big screen, but its budget constraints were very apparent. Perhaps it was screened on DVD rather than BluRay. Certainly the resolution didn't seem high, especially in the darker shots which in a film with a noir flavour are pretty commonplace. I enjoyed it more on the small screen where this wasn't quite so apparent. The lighting issues were still there though, especially with Alaina on the screen. Stewart often looked bleached or sweaty and both were just a product of the lighting. Most of the film's flaws obviously tied to technical limitations and it's not outside the realm of possibility that most of the rest do too. While Stewart and Dean do well generally with very complex characters, there are scenes and lines that called for another take that didn't come. The only non-technical flaw is the needless contraction of the director's name. 'A film by Bivás' merely looks pretentious and this isn't a black and white experimental art film.

If it wasn't clear from early scenes, the revelations halfway through really underline that this is all about the script. I enjoyed Dresback's writing here more than I did in Wish Inc, because it has length enough for depth and subtlety and she built it onto a structure that engaged my mind as well as my eyes. It's also a notable challenge for the actors, because they're not just tasked with playing a part, but playing it from a number of different perspectives. Stewart gets the toughest task, especially as she's stuck with what appear to be ludicrous character decisions: only with later perspective does anything about the whole hitman scenario seem believable. Dean gets a tough job too, though less so. These characters are not easy ones to play and, while both give it a great shot and succeed for the most part, they don't nail them all the way through. The more emotional they are, they better they are, but the quieter moments are more inconsistent.

The other three main stars do better, but to be fair, part of that is because their characters are less complex. Tiffany Shepis is excellent here in a role that ably demonstrates that she isn't just a scream queen, especially as almost every move she makes has importance. For someone who appears in so many campy movies, she's the most natural on camera of all the leads. Cavin Gray Schneider is best with the subtleties. Like Shepis, he's in and out of the film throughout, adding detail each time. My big discovery was James Ray, who plays Ben. I've seen him in a couple of films before, but only short ones. While he doesn't get much opportunity until the second half of this film, and then unfairly (no cop would be allowed to investigate his best friend's murder), he's a constant from then on and he maintains a quiet and thoughtful presence even when he's not on screen. I was also impressed by Shari Watts, who does a lot with a little as Alaina's mother.

At the end of the day, this certainly isn't a film for everyone. It's not a linear plot and it refuses to hold your hand and lead you through the story. More than your average whodunit, it requires you to keep your eyes open, to look for details that you may not normally look for: expressions, reactions, interactions between characters. Take note of them all, even the ones that don't make sense, because they may make sense later. It's also an ambitious picture, trying to do a lot more with the budget than it would normally allow, which led to technical issues that harm the film's impact. Lighting is its own character in a film noir and not only does this lighting not add style to the substance, it lessens the material. That said, if you're willing to look past the limitations and be open to engagement in the storyline, there's much here to appreciate. It's also a good way to be introduced to a lot of local talent in one fell swoop.

Dream Cleaners (2011)

Director: Craig Phillips
Stars: Larrs Jackson, Dave Shalansky and Devan Leos

This film was an official selection at the 8th annual International Horror & Sci-Fi Film Festival in Scottsdale in 2012. Here's an index to my reviews of 2012 films.

I found Dream Cleaners to be a really frustrating picture. One one front, it's executed superbly, with great acting from everyone involved, gorgeous effects and fun gimmickry. Yet, on another front, it immediately raised a whole bunch of questions and steadfastly refused to answer any of them. There is an ending that offers an explanation to a question actually posed within the film, but that wasn't one of the questions I was asking. So I sat back and enjoyed the visual aesthetics and the work of the folk we see on screen, while screaming internally at the writer for setting up something that made so little sense. Perhaps Craig Phillips, who wrote and directed, was working entirely in dream logic, which after all is no logic at all. Anything goes, right? In a dream, you can ask a question and a get a fish in reply and it'll make perfect sense until you wake up and try to figure out what the heck you'd eaten the night before to bring all that on to begin with.

We come in as a pair of professional dream cleaners finish off their lunch and prepare to get on with cleaning the dreams of a boy named Fudge, who they've been monitoring for a month. Artie is the experienced one of the pair, brought to life by the suitably grizzled form of Larrs Jackson, who does a great job with the jargon and the 'been there, done that, seen it all' attitude. Rex is the new guy, full of pep and confidence but who naturally screws up. Here, screwing up means a glorious opportunity for the effects guys to take over and paint digital effects over this suburban neighbourhood as they escape from Fudge's dream. They look like state of the art graphics and they're as fun to watch as the delightfully analogue gadgetry in the back of Artie and Rex's van, some of which looks animated too. Visually, this is a treat, courtesy of a team of visual artists, at least one of whom is extremely experienced. If it wasn't for the actors, it would feel like Pixar.

Well, not entirely, because while Pixar are pushing the boundaries of computer-based animation, they're fundamentally about telling stories and, as slick as Dream Cleaners seems to be on that front, the story is the weakest link. I've watched this a few times and I still have no conception of what dream cleaners do, why they might be required and who employs them. How can I accept a film without accepting its basic rationale for existing? I can't even figure out what these guys did in Fudge's dreams. There's no internal consistency here at all. They monitored for a month but Rex is brand new. Artie needs Rex but he can take care of business himself, without breaking a sweat, even if Rex screws up. The afternoon shift is, what, about three minutes long? How do I get that job? I understand the ending, honestly, but there just has to be more substance here. We can't merely apply dream logic to everything and expect that to suffice. At least I can't.

Outsight (2011)

Director: A R Madabushi
Stars: Steve Raine, Oihana Garde, Adam Loxely, Frances Allen, Amanda Golding, Gordon Ridout and Dot Smith

This film was an official selection at the 8th annual International Horror & Sci-Fi Film Festival in Scottsdale in 2012. Here's an index to my reviews of 2012 films.

Somehow I liked all the component parts of Outsight without particularly liking the film itself. The idea behind it is a good one: one man's rediscovery of colour in a world where people are unable to see in anything but black and white. It's easy to read this both literally and metaphorically, as what we see fits both sides equally. It's a arty black and white piece from the outset, with colour appearing only at key points in the story and with serious effect. This was timely, given that I'd recently read about Bruce Bridgeman, a 67 year old neuroscientist whose stereoblindness was cured after watching Hugo in 3D. Yet the story is also dystopian science fiction, with a traditional small man placed into a traditional big machine, although how Agricorp controls its employees is unfolded a little less overtly than usual. Nonetheless Ethan's discovery of colour arrives literally at the same time as his discovery of choice, of viewpoints other than what he's given.

I think my biggest problem was with the feel. I liked the science fiction aspects, the concepts and ideas that are woven into this story without explanation, like Anthony Burgess might do. 'Only the company can release people,' we hear Ethan tell a company counsellor, though 'release' in this instance apparently means 'death'. We're given no background to the environmental chaos that has presumably led to every employee growing their own plants, which are provided to the company as a quota and distilled into some sort of liquid, unpleasant without a pill, that provides all necessary nourishment. It all simply is, and we're tasked with reading this reality as if we'd been dumped into it by a time machine. It runs 24 minutes and often feels like it ran twice that but lost half of its material. Yet this black and white world misses out on as much emotion as it does colour; that's perhaps deliberate given the metaphor but it's missing nonetheless.

Visually it works very well, though inconsistently. We're treated to some gorgeous shots, though others appear almost throwaway. The colour gimmick is handled well. The lighting isn't what it could be, some scenes almost turning their contents into unintended silhouettes. The actors are capable, Stevie Raine leading the way as Ethan with able support from others. Surprisingly it was the more mechanical corporate figures of authority who stood out for me, rather than those who ought to have provided the metaphorical colour. In the end, I found myself drawn more to the story than the film. The screenplay was written by the director, A R Madabushi, based on a short story by Amy Lydon-Strutt called Oculus. That surprises me, because it's such an obvious piece to adapt to the screen, so much so that that could easily have been intended from its inception. Yet it's the ideas that stayed with me, not the gimmick, not the characters and not the visuals.

Mirage (2011)

Director: Miao Yu
Stars: Cory Aycock, Courtney Alana Ward and Andres Acosta

This film was an official selection at the 8th annual International Horror & Sci-Fi Film Festival in Scottsdale in 2012. Here's an index to my reviews of 2012 films.

Over the last few years, I've spent a lot of time inside movie theatres and I've seen how difficult it is for them to stay alive in a world of changing technologies and competing attractions. It's not an easy thing today to find a venue screening actual film as everything is going digital. I'm sure that writers Miao Yu and Christopher Amick wouldn't expect that what I'd take away from their film is the joy that in 2064 AD there might still be a movie theatre showing real 35mm. Judging from the posters in the Mirage lobby, all films in the future will be made by the Chinese: Losing Coconato is directed by Miao Yu and The Adventures of Captain Adam by Sissy Tsu. These are self-referential though. Miao Yu directed and co-wrote this film while Laura Coconato produced. Sissy Tsu isn't in the credits. Anyway, I just wish I could be projectionist Andrew Pan's audience, as he doesn't have one otherwise, perhaps because he's showing just another romcom.

When a bulb blows and the movie stops midstream, nobody notices because he is literally the only person in the Mirage. The popcorn machine has a shroud over it. The counter is covered in dust. Nobody goes to this theatre and Pan must be independently wealthy to be able to keep it open, though this 2064 AD does appear to be a true post-scarcity world. I really wish I could be there for that too. I'd rather not have to deal with Treasure Island though. While compared with the Mirage, which is retro even today, it's much more like the sort of futuristic vision you might expect for the year, it's recognisably grounded in today. A physical store where Pan can pick up a physical item, it's bare except for GEF, a Genuine Electronic Friend, like Microsoft for Stores. It says, 'Have a nice day,' when it delivers Pan's bulb, but a call for assistance generates technical difficulties. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

It's here that our story really begins, because the young lady that emerges carefully from behind the scenes is obviously as uncomfortable being around another real person as Pan is. This is key, as without it the ending might seem a little insulting. Pan spends his time in an empty theatre, imagining himself into the role of the leading man in the romcom he's projecting. When the new bulb projects him into the picture and he finds himself having to live that role, it's an eye opener. Initially it's because he has to interact with a woman in a romantic setting, but it becomes more than that and that underlines that the bulb is teaching him a lesson. Without thinking about the young lady at Treasure Island, it feels like a dubious lesson to give to a man who screens movies in a movie for people who watch movies. Yet, I wonder if it's not aiming just at his geeky solitude but at life in a world with no physical interaction. I hope so, but it's still not the ending I wanted.

Other than the ending, I liked Mirage. Current events notwithstanding, there's something about old school movie theatres that feels somehow timeless and they make for glorious environments for futuristic science fiction to play in. I liked Cory Aycock's portrayal of Pan, though he does feel well rounded for a geek whose only friends are fictional ghosts of the past on his theatre screen. I liked Ashley Pincket even more as Dona, the tentative Treasure Island assistant, enough that I really wish Yu and Amick had gone for the obvious ending for a change. There was room to make it awkward and meaningful rather than just sappy and it would have given Pincket more to do. I liked the design of Treasure Island, which is half welcoming and half padded cell. The effects are well done. I even liked the film within a film, though more for how it fit this story than for itself. It looks more rom than com and rather painful to sit through otherwise. This one is much better.

Anaphora (2011)

Director: André Albrecht
Stars: Andreas Bendig, Deborah Müller and Stephan Menzel-Gehrke

This film was an official selection at the 8th annual International Horror & Sci-Fi Film Festival in Scottsdale in 2012. Here's an index to my reviews of 2012 films.

This long German short is a deceptive creature. It begins traditionally enough with a few of the usual science fiction triggers. We're not in the future, as the phones are huge and the games are 8 bit, we're in what is more like an alternate recent past, where the Cold War is still raging and bad things are happening in Germany. The power dies as the news talks of special forces raids so our lead finds his way to a bar. We wonder why we're watching him, as he's hardly magnetic. In his apartment he played a video game with a cigarette on his lip as if he doesn't know what it's for. He buys a cola at the bar as beer is illegal, even if it's on offer. He shrugs off some chick who tries to chat him up, without even looking at her. Presumably the goal is to set him up as the standard brainwashed citizen/consumer, living as he's told. His cigarettes are Eight Ball, the brand on all the billboards. His story arc matches the film. Here we watch, later we care.

We're given some paranoia too. During the blackout, helicopters fly overhead and a bum tells our lead that they're after him. The bar only provides a moment or two of respite before special forces raid the place, decked out in black body armour and black balaclavas, and the place turns into a warzone as they try to find whatever it is that they're tracking. Most of the customers are armed, including the bartender, and we suddenly realise that we only spent a couple of minutes here before it turned into a big action movie. The testosterone is palpable, though if we have an action hero it's surely our blonde bartender chick. She kicks ass while our lead doesn't, making us wonder again why we're watching him. Sure, the fight choreography isn't as slick as it could be but I'm not complaining; Deborah Müller wasn't bad on the eyes even before she disposes of a trio of tough guys without too much effort. She was definitely the focus of my attention here.

All this unfolds so quickly that we have very little time to blink, let alone ponder the meaning of the picture. The feel isn't science fiction at all, the occasional low budget nods to Blade Runner notwithstanding. It feels like an action movie, albeit one whose timing suggests that it's meant to be a very eighties style action movie, presumably set in a pre-unification Germany. I started to think of the bartender like a West German Cynthia Rothrock. Yet the undertone is all science fiction, dystopian and paranoid and pessimistic, and sure enough, it soon makes itself overt. As our protagonist reaches for another cigarette, he instead pulls out of his pocket what looks like a pocket sized monolith. It glows and generates some sort of mini-black hole. The effects are solid, suggesting that while the budget is obviously low, it's far from non-existent. Both the length of the film and the ambition that soon manifests back that up. As small films go, this is a big one.

It's a film of two halves. The first half is all about expansion: building the atmosphere, tone and background. It ends with the mysterious death of our bartender in a back alley, but don't worry, she'll be back and that's no spoiler. The second half is all about contraction, as the story takes over and gradually reels in all the little throwaway moments we've seen thus far, explaining how none of them were throwaway in the slightest. It does so through a spiral approach, tightening relentlessly and with a faster and faster pace. The title, a linguistic term for self-reference, is highly appropriate because the spiral of the story is full of them and, like Pokémon, each time we think we've caught them all, another one leaps out at us. What's more, the longer the film runs, the quicker they come. The question is merely whether we figure them all out before they're explained. Given how fast it all unfolds that's not too likely. You can't catch 'em all.

I enjoyed this on a first viewing but liked it even more on a second. While it's a short that could viably be a feature, keeping it compressed to 22 minutes successfully maintains a pace that a feature probably couldn't, at least without the plot becoming a labyrinth of detail. At this length, it's straight forward enough to understand on a first viewing, though its revelations will make you want to see the film again. When you do, you'll see a lot more with the benefit of hindsight but it will still remain consistent. The writer is André Albrecht and he'd deserve most praise here even were that his only role, but he also edited, produced and directed, meaning that it's pretty much his film throughout. This is his third short film, each time handling those four roles himself (or more), but they're notably spaced out: the first in 2003 when he was 20, the second three years later. Did it really take him five years to make this film? I hope not.

His actors do their job well. This is surprisingly Deborah Müller's only credit. She feels enough at ease here for me to expect experience. Maybe she came to this from the stage, maybe she's just natural. Andreas Bendig, who plays the lead, has a few credits, including the intriguingly titled The Golden Nazi Vampire of Absam: Part II - The Secret of Kottlitz Castle. I simply have to track that one down. This appears to be by far his largest part though, and based on the second half of this film much more than the first, he should be moving on to bigger parts generally. The third notable actor is Stephan Menzel-Gehrke, older than his fellow cast member and notably wilder in his role but still effective. Nobody else lets the side down, though the budget ensures that you wouldn't mistake this for a Hollywood blockbuster. Yet I've seen worse explosions and gunshots in big budget features. For a short film, they're great, and they sit within a story that's better.

How to Kill Your Clone (2011)

Director: Jack McWilliams
Stars: Jamie Kaler, Joseph Culliton and Sasha Feiler

This film was an official selection at the 8th annual International Horror & Sci-Fi Film Festival in Scottsdale in 2012. Here's an index to my reviews of 2012 films.

While Y Sci Fi was a political message, How to Kill Your Clone is a commercial one, albeit fictional right now. With current advances in science, how long will that remain the case? Well, this short advertising pitch from Clone Killer Corporation aims to take the future into the past. Everything here is done up to seem old school, from the aging effects to make it look like a worn 35mm reel to the wooden corporate spokesman and his mismatched suit. It's like we're back in the fifties, but an alternate universe fifties where clones are an everyday reality for us all. Our spokesman, Larry, takes us into that reality by showing us lots of Dicks. No, I don't think that was accidental either. Dick has been cloned a number of times and he thinks it's great. For a while. After all, he can sit back and enjoy being waited on by his wife while his clones are doing his job and fixing his car; but soon they're doing his best girl and fixing his demise. Always a catch, huh?

And that's where Clone Killer Corporation comes in. The name is self explanatory and as long as you get to them first, they'll never accept business from your clone. I really like that little touch. I like a lot of the little touches that quickly unfold as Dick and his clones act out the scenarios that will send you rushing to Clone Killer Corporation with chequebook in hand. How to Kill Your Clone runs a mere five minutes but it's a frantic five minutes that keeps us on the hop as much as Dick. Poor Dick! Every time he turns round, his retro-futuristic clone-filled life has taken another turn for the worse because he doesn't know the tricks that Clone Killer Corporation know. If only he'd got to them sooner! Well, thank you, McWilliams Brothers, for sharing this valuable information. Now we can be sure that when one of our clones shows that little defect, that little personality quirk, we know exactly where to go to fix the problem. Blammo! Get them before they get you!

It's easy to slip into advertising lingo because the tone of the film and its fast pace bore into your brain, lay down foundations and set up shop, just like every advertising agent back then wished they could do. Joseph Culliton does a deceptively clever job. Larry feels like a hasbeen, or maybe a never was, who's making a final attempt to pay his rent by hawking a product that might just generate 'original casualties'. That's much trickier to do than it sounds and he nails it. Jamie Kaler has it even tougher because he doesn't only have to play a character called Dick, he has to play a whole bunch of characters called Dick, all of whom are slightly, if not wildly, different from each other. He's on screen a couple of times at once for much of the picture. Jack McWilliams directed and Ed McWilliams wrote, but maybe that's a Coen Brothers trick and they both did both. Either way, there are flaws here but they hide them well by not allowing us time to blink.

Cosas feas (2010)

Director: Isaac Ezban
Stars: Miguel Couturier, Aida Torres, Julia Carrillo, Victor Bonila and Mijael Askenazi

Kriko Krakinsky's childhood entered a metaphorical minefield when he attended his first sexual awareness class. It isn't immediately obvious why he bounces up and down nervously like he's masturbating under the table and then runs out of the room soon after Dr Narroza starts to explain the anatomy of the human penis, but the story is our explanation. And what a story! This is one of those rare gems that is unlikely to be like anything you've ever seen before. Cosas feas, which appropriately translates from the Spanish as Nasty Stuff, is a Mexican short film by writer/director Isaac Ezban, but it plays out far more like a Eastern European movie, full of wonder, surrealism and the outright bizarre. Mijael Askenazi debuted here as Kriko Krakinsky and it's going to be a hard act to follow because there just aren't many films that are as truly out there as this one. A David Lynch film would feel like Disney after this. He's going to have to find Jodorowsky to go a step further.

Most of the film is shot through a fish eye lens which turns almost everyone and everything into a caricature, especially his freaky family. Only Kriko seems normal because he's almost always seen right in the centre where there's no distortion. His dad works in a bank and his mum is a housewife but that only sounds normal right now because you haven't seen this picture yet. His elder brother Erbert is the most bullied nerd in school but still manages to get some every night from his long term girlfriend Filda, who looks rather like a cavewoman. That's how surreal this movie is from the outset, sort of like casting Eddie Deezen as Hugh Hefner in a biopic and playing it straight. And it gets consistently further out there as the 29 minutes run on. Honest. This film was shot as Ezban's thesis project at the Universidad Iberoamericana and it isn't surprising to find that his influences included David Cronenberg, Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Terry Gilliam. Yet the feel of the picture was inspired by Ed Wood, hence the narration and the artificial film aging effects.

Nothing I can tell you here will prepare you for this film. If you take that as a compliment, you're going to love it, even before you get to see the mutant vagina that took prosthetics expert Alfredo Garcia (yes, really) four months to design and build. It was inspired by H R Giger and medical volumes detailing skin diseases. If that sentence sounds ominous to you, then you really don't want to go any further. If you're a member of the moral majority I should point out that this is a film all about sexual coming of age and could be described as a paedophile bestiality movie with cripples and aliens to boot, but you wouldn't believe me and I certainly can't be bothered to press the issue. Let's just say that whenever I've imagined Mexican movies about illegal aliens, they looked a lot more like Machete and a lot less like this. Shot in twelve days by a man driven to keep his cinematic vision intact, it bodes very well indeed for his future in psychotronic cinema.

36ème sous-sol (2010)

Director: Pierre-Henri Debies
Stars: Julien Guibert, Stéphanie Kern-Siebering, Eduoard Audouin and Anne Courpron

The lift is small enough to be packed by four people and it has a long way to go. It's descending steadily but we come in at the 58th floor and it's not the quickest lift in the world. It doesn't take us long to work out why these people are in it and where they're going, especially with the aid of flashbacks, but it takes them quite a bit longer because that's the point of the story. The picture is therefore at once entirely predictable and magnificently realised. If there are surprises, they're in the details, not the big picture. The four are very different and very well portrayed, well beyond the apparent experience of the actors involved. Julien Guilbert plays slick and self assured Samy, used to being in charge. Anne Courpron makes Josie impatient and annoying but somehow a little sympathetic nonetheless, though only a little, because Edouard Audouin, as her brother Henri, has dealt with her long enough to have become even more impatient and annoying than she is.

It's testament to their skill as actors that they spend most of the thirteen minutes this French short runs fleshing out their characters with nuances, none more so than the fourth in the lift. Stéphanie Kern-Siebering is a joy to watch as Lili. There's one lingering shot where she transforms from quiet laughter to worry, all done without words and told through facial expression and inner feeling. It's great acting but while she's apparently the most experienced of the four actors, that doesn't mean she has a long filmography behind her. I won't explain the back stories of the characters, because that would spoil the only revelations this film has. 36ème sous-sol, which translates roughly to 36th Basement, though I'm not sure precisely why, is far from a surprising picture. In fact, the most surprising thing about it is how well it turns out given how inherently unsurprising it all is. Beyond the acting, it's shot beautifully, the effects are good and it does exactly what it aims to do.

Alchemy and Other Imperfections (2011)

Director: Zachary Rothman
Stars: Heather Doerksen, Billy Marchenski and Peter Hall

This film was an official selection at the 8th annual International Horror & Sci-Fi Film Festival in Scottsdale in 2012. Here's an index to my reviews of 2012 films.

What a unexpected treat this was! This Canadian short is a great big slice of fantastic quirkiness from the very outset and it didn't let up until the credits rolled at the end. It's also many other things in between. It's a silent movie with sound, as there are only two characters, an unnamed married couple who have lost the ability to speak to each other, so there's precisely no dialogue whatsoever. It's a prose poem, as that gap is filled by Peter Hall, whose explanatory contribution cannot be described merely as narration, his voice as delightfully playful as the bouncy Balkan brass score by Vancouver's Orkestar Šlivovica, who must be a glorious riot live. It's a visual treat, the lush colours and fabulous set design enough to bathe in. At heart, it's a fable, less a story and more a cautionary tale with a number of depths to explore. Oh, and whatever else it is, it's surely the best film ever narrated by a cockroach. That grabbed you, huh?

I find it truly astounding that Zachary Rothman, who wrote, produced and directed, did so on a budget of $800 Canadian. There are Hollywood movies that wish they had as much eye candy as this, ones with five or six more digits in their budgets. I'm not just talking about visual effects like the esoterica that dances around Heather Doerksen's head as she conjures up a plan to fix what can't be fixed. I'm talking about the palpable textures of the set and the costumes, the arcane ephemera that her character dabbles with and the antique mechanics that her screen husband constructs. Surely much of it must have to do with the production design and costumes credited to Enigma Arcana, but it's also in the camera motion, careful choreography and the way that the editing plays with distance and division. This is a movie to feel as much as see and hear, a treat for quite a few different senses.

And all of this means that it's less of a film and more of an experience. Like most fables, it hints at far more than it says, letting its audience find their own meaning and application, so you're not going to get much of a synopsis. Suffice it to say that this couple have a let a single event bury them so deeply in guilt that they've become isolated both from the world and each other. Our little fable is triggered by the woman, a practioner in dark arts, deciding on a possible way to fix things. Naturally it doesn't go quite as she expects. Heather Doerksen and Billy Marchenski do a great deal with their characters, especially as they have no dialogue and are deliberately short on background detail. They both approach their roles like paintings, dabbing an impression here and a suggestion there. I haven't seen either before, but I have seen a film by Rothman: 2006's Lost, which I didn't rate highly and don't remember. This one is a gem I won't forget.