Fantastic Fest Bumpers
Shot some Fantastic Fest bumpers and could use some votes for them! Check ‘em out!!!!
All films had to have a child, a monster and end with the word “Fantastic”
The Weiner Dog Gang
A Werewolf in My Bedroom
Monster Energy
A Big Day
I could really use the votes, I’m up against some steep competition...
All films had to have a child, a monster and end with the word “Fantastic”
The Weiner Dog Gang
A Werewolf in My Bedroom
Monster Energy
A Big Day
I could really use the votes, I’m up against some steep competition...
Notes from LAFF Film Financing Conference
Living in LA has a positive aspect - I can now easily try out some new festivals. This was the first year that I've attended LAFF - it's a different fest than I'm used to, it's very geared to the exhibition of the various films more than being a conference. There's a few panels spread out over the course of the fest, but they're generally smaller and more specifically geared towards a subject (i.e. Mad Men or GLBT filmmaking)
The exception to this is the big Film Financing Conference, which is a whole event to itself. Starting at 8 those who purchased the separate pass for the conference take on a crash course in guidance and analysis. I was lucky enough to be one of the few who was able to attend the conference, so I felt the least I could do for others is to share my notes from the event.
Keynote Address
I don't really need to share my notes on the keynote as it's available in text form and in podcast form.
I will give a little bit of background for the keynote though - last year Mark Gill's keynote address entitled, "Yes, The Sky Really Is Falling" made waves as it was spread like wildfire through the internet and around independent production company offices across the world. While everybody was hoping that his predictions of doom and gloom would be wrong, he was proven very right.
The legacy of last year's keynote was floating over every speaker's head - would their prediction be the one that would find its way across the globe? Could they be the "guru" who puts out a negative prediction that becomes the mantra of those across the industry?
If you look back at Gill's speech, he delivers the negative message and then tries to spin it and show the upside towards the end (sadly after many had stopped listening or reading) - the panels and presentations were structured in a very similar way - we know the independent film world is in an awful place and it's not going to get better for a long, long time BUT we can try to look at the positive aspects of it. It's a very rational way of assessing the situation.
I doubt any of the panels I attended will be flooding inboxes or twitterstreams in either fashion, positive or negative. I came through the day with an odd positive feeling that was merely surrounded by the doom and gloom elements. Am I still worried about where independent film is going? Absolutely, but I have that kind of hope that says that a team-of-misfits came come through and make it to the playoffs.
Independent Financing Models: The Old and the New
(the alternate panel was written up here: "The World as we know it: Is it over?"
This was a fast paced presentation so I basically wrote down everything they said and hoped to make complete sense of it later. Some of the stuff is pretty basic, but I didn't have time to pick and choose)
Irwin Rappaport (P.C.)
2 Methods of Financing: Equity Financing and Debt Financing
Equity - Investors become part owners; profit participation, Usually through an LLC. Usually investors entitled to 110 - 125% of money invested as first money, then 50% of profits. All investors split this 50%.
Deferments - First pay back investors, then contingent deferments. "Post-recoupment basis" - great way to earn money for self, Above-the-line comes before profit part. Earn money before film goes into profit.
Vendors (i.e. Post production) can be deferred as well, but it's greatly difficult.
Preferred return: the 110-125% has various levels of participation (i.e. distributor choice, the deal, down to casting, etc. as all effects likelihood of ROI)
Get all equity investors before start; Raise all money before shoot; GET CONTRACTS, GET MONEY IN THE BANK - Then no excuses.
Include costs of Answer-print, video master and deliverables in budget as well as fest costs, publicists, producer's rep in the initial budget
In case of excess money (!) giving back to investors is always an option.
Debt Financing = Loan. Lenders get first money, even before equity investors
In indie-film loan world the film negative, content, screenplay, distribution rights & revenue stream are all collateral against your loan. Pre-sales are great collateral to obtain loan, however, distro must be "credit worthy".
This takes a LOT of time, lots of checks and balances, lots of lawyers. Gotta have shit together in a major way. 6 months MINIMUM before shooting.
Most and major sales are at the 3 markets - major part of getting the pre-sales.
Foreign sales agent will take 5-25% of the sale. Pre-sales tend to have name actor/name director or director with track record & producer with track record.
GAP financing - filling the gap between pre-sold & not-pre-sold. Loan secured on distro on deals that you haven't made. Has it's own fee and can have very high interest.
Loan fees and interest are loaned to you, as is legal fees.
Reason for debt is that you don't pay profit participation in this model. You keep all of it in success.
Tax incentives - last part of financing. Credit against income made in that state. Monetize it by selling it to local buisnesses. Can typically get 80-90% of credit.
Negative pickup - taking the package and selling it to the studio as a pre-sale. Fixed amount, used as collateral on a loan. Use studio check to pay bank back.
Production company - either equity investors, or introduce you to investors or filmmakers that will lend credibility.
Finders - Find money, want credit. Structure deal so that if a finder uses a friend of a friend of a friend that you pay ONE fee, not multiple fees.
Peter Broderick (Paradigm Consulting) - distribution strategist.
Vision of distro needed before you complete your movie; the reactive model is dead.
All-rights deals leave less than 2% of filmmakers happy.
He then referenced this article: “Welcome to the New World of Distribution”
Quadrants as Audience analysis are ridiculous and outdated in today's market.
Robert Greenwold (Outfoxed) is a great example of alternate distribution in his house party model and crowdsourcing BUT he had a track record.
The Age of Stupid - structured crowdsourcing as a loan that did not need to be repaid; 2 separate campaigns for production, distribution, and an Ad campaign. Donations above a certain amount were repaind (Donations WERE NOT structured as investments for those repaid, even though the term "invest" was used.)
Goal for the film was to get 250M people to see it and become climate change activists.
Traditional distro is at a worse state than thought; Hybrid distro has potential for new successes, however, works for specific projects.
Build individual relationships with potential audiences.
Gap lenders are taking larger than average risks.
Word meanings change between contracts.
Diversify revenue streams, but don't give out rights that will hamstring bigger deals (i.e. selling DVD too early)
Finders offer a less-structured way to get money; however it's important to know what the finder is telling potential investors - misleading them will bring a world of problems.
If a finder is unlicensed an investor can rescind their investment at any time; check SEC certificates.
Finder can be another word for co-producer.
Film websites need to evolve past being an online press kit - needs content/ reasons to come back.
For docs you can make twice the money on an acquisition over a pre-sale... it's not easy though.
Blue sky laws(laws limiting numbers of investors) do not apply as the crowd is contributing/donating NOT investing.
Always use an attorney when getting the right to a property and dealing with financiers.
A LOT of attorneys (and reps) are not up-to-date with the newest nuances of modern distro sources. Get multiple attorneys to look over the deal; you have to live with the contracts for a long time.
Lender gets money before the distributor.
Packaging Tips
(this was a panel devoted to hearing pitches from the LAFF pitch competition and giving them advice for structuring it when they had to pitch to investors and such. It really wasn't that helpful and no lie somebody pitched the basic plot of Raising Arizona unironically as a serious plot. I don't think they even realized it, it was kinda hilarious, but only to me. This wasn't a great panel, but it beat going to see state incentive people explaining that Montana is a good place to shoot because "You can go fishing between takes on some of the world's finest trout streams" - which is actually in Montana's handout they gave us)
Films are still being made, they just take more time and you have to be sure that it NEEDS to be made
Next 12 months - 3 or 4 years pricing will be the big issue of filmmaking.
The excuse after "No" is more for the person rejecting than it is for the rejectee.
Can't just send a script out anymore; a package is necessary
If you've done even the most cursory amount of research in a pitch session you're better than 90% (I think this was more from my frustration listening to the pitches instead of anything that was actually said...)
Harder to sell a film with female leads/female driven
Crossing Borders: Global Film Markets
Buyer's rep - Agent for international distribution
In some territories, like Germany, more money can be made by splitting rights - selling theatrical/TV separately
International TV market is currently "dismal"
VOD is still not consistanly monetized in any territory
DVD is down, VOD hasn't come in to make up for it.
Tyler Perry movies only make money domestically (perhaps the greatest reason why Obama should declare war on the rest of the world tonight; the cultural divide is just too great)
Strong theatrical markets are suffering from currency devaluation
Banks have VERY strong opinions on sales agents, call them before choosing one.
In current climate banks are more often getting involved on collections - both with and without permission
First time director films do not sell as much; all assets are needed.
DVD tanking is the real killer of the industry; no safety net.
The novelty of special features has expired - no longer a great selling force.
Big studios dropping their DVD prices caused indies to have to cut theirs and killed the margin.
Also - studios have outrun their libraries, have to release new films.
A film's cost has little-to-no relation as to what it's worth.
A slow limited roll out release is great in the US; disasterous globally due to piracy.
International release windows can be built, but international distributors can distribute a film pretty much whenever they want to.
Summit sells and collects, as do Mandate, Lakeshore, and Essential. There's probably less than 10 companies that do anymore.
We'll be hurting until independent distributors can make money on streaming/VOD and fill in the gap that DVD left.
With the leaving of Wall St. money new income is coming from Europe, India and high net worth individuals.
Production in LA will be slow for 12 months - 3 years
LA's incentive of 20% is not enough for most productions to even consider shooting there. (Note: Texas is currently at 15% with a 17.5% maximum.)
South Africa is the only place in Africa that has film infrastructure. SA is also very favorable for shooting.
Digital Distribution: The Future is here, but Where is the Money?
In 1997 Fox payed an unprecedented $80M for Jurassic Park 2's TV broadcast rights - Production of the film cost $73M
Fathom Events - IOUSA - 360 screens - $600K opening night
YouTube is not generating views or revenue for film
Watch Now is generating revenue
NetFlix instant streaming pays anywhere from $1K-$35K/year depending on DVD performance
If on Netflix, put your film in your queue - that counts as demand. Ever add counts.
Helvetica has generated $60K on iTunes and is considered a "Grand Slam"
In early years SnagFilms supplies films to Hulu. Snag gets a 50/50 split on advertising, 8.5% on DVD sales referred by the site (standard Amazon referral rate) and 50/50 sales on Hulu.
iTunes - Apple 30%, Filmmaker/Supplier - 70%
Targeted marketing - newamericanvision.com
The average demographic of a SangFilm user - over 30
Digital distribution (For films) is currently 90% iTunes, 10% everyone else
Be careful about your rights, there's always a new platform around the corner that may be better (But tomorrow may never come...)
CreateSpace on Amazon - 70/30 towards the filmmaker (self distro)
FAST - SnagFilms program to take film from fest circuit easier
If you can crack a "Top X downloaded films" list, you tend to stay there, it's incredibly effective advertising.
iTunes has stopped/slowed buying shorts.
Filmmakers, from now on, MUST get involved on the marketing of their films
Waterbourne's digital release was a disaster - Google claimed the hits reported were inaccurate and were really only 1/10th of what was reported, paid on the lesser number.
SnagFilms provides audit rights. The tracking is difficult to count plays/ads played. Contract with advertiser determines how many seconds counts as an Ad play. Currently it's 5 seconds; Ad rates are radically different between films.
IODA - iTunes aggregator, Cinetic
Don't go to an aggregator unless you think they can do better than you can.
Theauteurs.com - distro outlet.
Snag shifts the brand trust to the sites that embed the movie and gets a target audience that way.
Movie titles are more important than ever - there's a HUGE value in being top result in Google.
Free availability kills piracy.
powertools.wikispaces.com
(That's the last of my notes. Some of it makes more sense in context, to say the least. That said, I think it was a valuable conference. More than anything else, it makes me just want to get in there and do it!)
The exception to this is the big Film Financing Conference, which is a whole event to itself. Starting at 8 those who purchased the separate pass for the conference take on a crash course in guidance and analysis. I was lucky enough to be one of the few who was able to attend the conference, so I felt the least I could do for others is to share my notes from the event.
Keynote Address
I don't really need to share my notes on the keynote as it's available in text form and in podcast form.
I will give a little bit of background for the keynote though - last year Mark Gill's keynote address entitled, "Yes, The Sky Really Is Falling" made waves as it was spread like wildfire through the internet and around independent production company offices across the world. While everybody was hoping that his predictions of doom and gloom would be wrong, he was proven very right.
The legacy of last year's keynote was floating over every speaker's head - would their prediction be the one that would find its way across the globe? Could they be the "guru" who puts out a negative prediction that becomes the mantra of those across the industry?
If you look back at Gill's speech, he delivers the negative message and then tries to spin it and show the upside towards the end (sadly after many had stopped listening or reading) - the panels and presentations were structured in a very similar way - we know the independent film world is in an awful place and it's not going to get better for a long, long time BUT we can try to look at the positive aspects of it. It's a very rational way of assessing the situation.
I doubt any of the panels I attended will be flooding inboxes or twitterstreams in either fashion, positive or negative. I came through the day with an odd positive feeling that was merely surrounded by the doom and gloom elements. Am I still worried about where independent film is going? Absolutely, but I have that kind of hope that says that a team-of-misfits came come through and make it to the playoffs.
Independent Financing Models: The Old and the New
(the alternate panel was written up here: "The World as we know it: Is it over?"
This was a fast paced presentation so I basically wrote down everything they said and hoped to make complete sense of it later. Some of the stuff is pretty basic, but I didn't have time to pick and choose)
Irwin Rappaport (P.C.)
2 Methods of Financing: Equity Financing and Debt Financing
Equity - Investors become part owners; profit participation, Usually through an LLC. Usually investors entitled to 110 - 125% of money invested as first money, then 50% of profits. All investors split this 50%.
Deferments - First pay back investors, then contingent deferments. "Post-recoupment basis" - great way to earn money for self, Above-the-line comes before profit part. Earn money before film goes into profit.
Vendors (i.e. Post production) can be deferred as well, but it's greatly difficult.
Preferred return: the 110-125% has various levels of participation (i.e. distributor choice, the deal, down to casting, etc. as all effects likelihood of ROI)
Get all equity investors before start; Raise all money before shoot; GET CONTRACTS, GET MONEY IN THE BANK - Then no excuses.
Include costs of Answer-print, video master and deliverables in budget as well as fest costs, publicists, producer's rep in the initial budget
In case of excess money (!) giving back to investors is always an option.
Debt Financing = Loan. Lenders get first money, even before equity investors
In indie-film loan world the film negative, content, screenplay, distribution rights & revenue stream are all collateral against your loan. Pre-sales are great collateral to obtain loan, however, distro must be "credit worthy".
This takes a LOT of time, lots of checks and balances, lots of lawyers. Gotta have shit together in a major way. 6 months MINIMUM before shooting.
Most and major sales are at the 3 markets - major part of getting the pre-sales.
Foreign sales agent will take 5-25% of the sale. Pre-sales tend to have name actor/name director or director with track record & producer with track record.
GAP financing - filling the gap between pre-sold & not-pre-sold. Loan secured on distro on deals that you haven't made. Has it's own fee and can have very high interest.
Loan fees and interest are loaned to you, as is legal fees.
Reason for debt is that you don't pay profit participation in this model. You keep all of it in success.
Tax incentives - last part of financing. Credit against income made in that state. Monetize it by selling it to local buisnesses. Can typically get 80-90% of credit.
Negative pickup - taking the package and selling it to the studio as a pre-sale. Fixed amount, used as collateral on a loan. Use studio check to pay bank back.
Production company - either equity investors, or introduce you to investors or filmmakers that will lend credibility.
Finders - Find money, want credit. Structure deal so that if a finder uses a friend of a friend of a friend that you pay ONE fee, not multiple fees.
Peter Broderick (Paradigm Consulting) - distribution strategist.
Vision of distro needed before you complete your movie; the reactive model is dead.
All-rights deals leave less than 2% of filmmakers happy.
He then referenced this article: “Welcome to the New World of Distribution”
Quadrants as Audience analysis are ridiculous and outdated in today's market.
Robert Greenwold (Outfoxed) is a great example of alternate distribution in his house party model and crowdsourcing BUT he had a track record.
The Age of Stupid - structured crowdsourcing as a loan that did not need to be repaid; 2 separate campaigns for production, distribution, and an Ad campaign. Donations above a certain amount were repaind (Donations WERE NOT structured as investments for those repaid, even though the term "invest" was used.)
Goal for the film was to get 250M people to see it and become climate change activists.
Traditional distro is at a worse state than thought; Hybrid distro has potential for new successes, however, works for specific projects.
Build individual relationships with potential audiences.
Gap lenders are taking larger than average risks.
Word meanings change between contracts.
Diversify revenue streams, but don't give out rights that will hamstring bigger deals (i.e. selling DVD too early)
Finders offer a less-structured way to get money; however it's important to know what the finder is telling potential investors - misleading them will bring a world of problems.
If a finder is unlicensed an investor can rescind their investment at any time; check SEC certificates.
Finder can be another word for co-producer.
Film websites need to evolve past being an online press kit - needs content/ reasons to come back.
For docs you can make twice the money on an acquisition over a pre-sale... it's not easy though.
Blue sky laws(laws limiting numbers of investors) do not apply as the crowd is contributing/donating NOT investing.
Always use an attorney when getting the right to a property and dealing with financiers.
A LOT of attorneys (and reps) are not up-to-date with the newest nuances of modern distro sources. Get multiple attorneys to look over the deal; you have to live with the contracts for a long time.
Lender gets money before the distributor.
Packaging Tips
(this was a panel devoted to hearing pitches from the LAFF pitch competition and giving them advice for structuring it when they had to pitch to investors and such. It really wasn't that helpful and no lie somebody pitched the basic plot of Raising Arizona unironically as a serious plot. I don't think they even realized it, it was kinda hilarious, but only to me. This wasn't a great panel, but it beat going to see state incentive people explaining that Montana is a good place to shoot because "You can go fishing between takes on some of the world's finest trout streams" - which is actually in Montana's handout they gave us)
Films are still being made, they just take more time and you have to be sure that it NEEDS to be made
Next 12 months - 3 or 4 years pricing will be the big issue of filmmaking.
The excuse after "No" is more for the person rejecting than it is for the rejectee.
Can't just send a script out anymore; a package is necessary
If you've done even the most cursory amount of research in a pitch session you're better than 90% (I think this was more from my frustration listening to the pitches instead of anything that was actually said...)
Harder to sell a film with female leads/female driven
Crossing Borders: Global Film Markets
Buyer's rep - Agent for international distribution
In some territories, like Germany, more money can be made by splitting rights - selling theatrical/TV separately
International TV market is currently "dismal"
VOD is still not consistanly monetized in any territory
DVD is down, VOD hasn't come in to make up for it.
Tyler Perry movies only make money domestically (perhaps the greatest reason why Obama should declare war on the rest of the world tonight; the cultural divide is just too great)
Strong theatrical markets are suffering from currency devaluation
Banks have VERY strong opinions on sales agents, call them before choosing one.
In current climate banks are more often getting involved on collections - both with and without permission
First time director films do not sell as much; all assets are needed.
DVD tanking is the real killer of the industry; no safety net.
The novelty of special features has expired - no longer a great selling force.
Big studios dropping their DVD prices caused indies to have to cut theirs and killed the margin.
Also - studios have outrun their libraries, have to release new films.
A film's cost has little-to-no relation as to what it's worth.
A slow limited roll out release is great in the US; disasterous globally due to piracy.
International release windows can be built, but international distributors can distribute a film pretty much whenever they want to.
Summit sells and collects, as do Mandate, Lakeshore, and Essential. There's probably less than 10 companies that do anymore.
We'll be hurting until independent distributors can make money on streaming/VOD and fill in the gap that DVD left.
With the leaving of Wall St. money new income is coming from Europe, India and high net worth individuals.
Production in LA will be slow for 12 months - 3 years
LA's incentive of 20% is not enough for most productions to even consider shooting there. (Note: Texas is currently at 15% with a 17.5% maximum.)
South Africa is the only place in Africa that has film infrastructure. SA is also very favorable for shooting.
Digital Distribution: The Future is here, but Where is the Money?
In 1997 Fox payed an unprecedented $80M for Jurassic Park 2's TV broadcast rights - Production of the film cost $73M
Fathom Events - IOUSA - 360 screens - $600K opening night
YouTube is not generating views or revenue for film
Watch Now is generating revenue
NetFlix instant streaming pays anywhere from $1K-$35K/year depending on DVD performance
If on Netflix, put your film in your queue - that counts as demand. Ever add counts.
Helvetica has generated $60K on iTunes and is considered a "Grand Slam"
In early years SnagFilms supplies films to Hulu. Snag gets a 50/50 split on advertising, 8.5% on DVD sales referred by the site (standard Amazon referral rate) and 50/50 sales on Hulu.
iTunes - Apple 30%, Filmmaker/Supplier - 70%
Targeted marketing - newamericanvision.com
The average demographic of a SangFilm user - over 30
Digital distribution (For films) is currently 90% iTunes, 10% everyone else
Be careful about your rights, there's always a new platform around the corner that may be better (But tomorrow may never come...)
CreateSpace on Amazon - 70/30 towards the filmmaker (self distro)
FAST - SnagFilms program to take film from fest circuit easier
If you can crack a "Top X downloaded films" list, you tend to stay there, it's incredibly effective advertising.
iTunes has stopped/slowed buying shorts.
Filmmakers, from now on, MUST get involved on the marketing of their films
Waterbourne's digital release was a disaster - Google claimed the hits reported were inaccurate and were really only 1/10th of what was reported, paid on the lesser number.
SnagFilms provides audit rights. The tracking is difficult to count plays/ads played. Contract with advertiser determines how many seconds counts as an Ad play. Currently it's 5 seconds; Ad rates are radically different between films.
IODA - iTunes aggregator, Cinetic
Don't go to an aggregator unless you think they can do better than you can.
Theauteurs.com - distro outlet.
Snag shifts the brand trust to the sites that embed the movie and gets a target audience that way.
Movie titles are more important than ever - there's a HUGE value in being top result in Google.
Free availability kills piracy.
powertools.wikispaces.com
(That's the last of my notes. Some of it makes more sense in context, to say the least. That said, I think it was a valuable conference. More than anything else, it makes me just want to get in there and do it!)
Claudio Fragasso Challenge Pt. 2: White Apache
[My apologies for having this come so late after the last one, I’ve been sick recently - no, not the swine flu; I’m pretty much sicker of people asking if it’s swine flu than being sick...]
The Claudio Fragasso Challenge, for me, isn't really about having the strength to sit down and watch a handful of bad movies. Anybody can do that. No, at it's heart, the goal of the challenge is to come to an understanding - what lead Fragasso to make such a bizarrely fascinating film like Troll 2 - where did it come from? Was he always making strange films and only Troll 2 took off in popularity? Was Troll 2 the movie that he always wanted to make, but kept pent up inside of him, waiting to burst free in a moment of what some would call pure artistic expression? There's been a lot of research and thousands, if not millions, of words written about the development of the greats like Bergman, Fellini, Godard, etc. I've got a book on my shelf chronicling the development of Woody Allen and his opinions on various subjects over the years.
But not every filmmaker is of that caliber.
Perhaps there's something to learn in the development (Or devolution) of a lesser filmmaker. We study the greats to in striving to be like them, but maybe we should be learning from the mistakes of those who failed to avoid their pitfalls. Maybe we should study the mediocre to see what the genius idols could have been if the right circumstances didn't pop up.
White Apache
This barebones and mechanical description of the film implies a movie about understanding differences, overcoming racial boundaries, and finding your place in the world. Sadly, none of these things actually describe the content in White Apache.
To put things in perspective, this film comes early in Fragasso's career (Troll 2 actually serves as a mid-point), he's directed on his own before, but still continues to partner with Italian trash king Bruno Mattei. Fragasso's involvement on this film is a bit hard to decipher, as it's a film that he co-directed/assistant directed.
Even more confusing is trying to figure out what exactly an Italian Assistant Director does, exactly. In America, the term AD is a bit of a misnomer, it's not a position that traditionally leads to directing, instead it's more about keeping the production on-time/organized. Looking at a bit of Italian film history (Bertolucci was AD to Pasolini, Leone AD'd for De Sica) the title seems to be more of what's referred to in the states as a Second Unit Director - the guy who shoots establishing shots, time-lapse sequences, anything that either needs to be done concurrently or that the primary director doesn't want to bother with. That said, I can't find any source that details explicitly what the position does in Italy, particularly in the assembly-line film houses. (If anybody has an expertise and wants to chime in, I'd be grateful).
So, all of that said, White Apache feels like it has split-brain disease - that different parts were handled by different people. The vast majority of the film seems to be directed by somebody who just didn't really care, as long as the scene's purpose was achieved (or close enough). Then there's some parts that seem to be a little more bizarre... which I can only hope are the early manifestations of the Fragasso style.
The film begins oddly, with an Indian, Crazy Bull, looking into the camera, breaking the fourth wall, telling the audience that the story they're about to watch is one of great importance to the Apache people, however, in order to make the story more palatable, "The Apaches in our story will be speaking our language". If the film was made under more masterful hands, it'd be upheld as a great avant-garde moment in Italian westerns, both in putting the narration in the hands of the Indians whom speaking directly to the audience, and having the Indians call English "our" language... but under Mattei/Fragasso it can only be described as sloppy, it’s a mistake that nobody cared enough to correct. The character of Crazy Bull is an interesting one - he serves as a post-modern narrator, often telling you exactly that, "this is where our story takes a turn" and whatnot. He serves as a reliable narrator to the audience, when inside the narrative, he's regarded as a joke and a loon. Usually if a narrator character is placed inside a story, it's a bit role, or that of a wise or caring elder... in this film he takes the narrator's omniscience to whole new level - at one point Shining Sky, the titular White Apache, is hanged from a tree. Crazy Bull just walks up to him and cuts him down - there's not even a "lucky for you I was just passing by" or "I heard all the commotion and came to check things out"... No, he just walks up to him and cuts him down. If the writers (who weren’t Mattei and Fragasso, but typical Italian film industry workers at the time – they have dozens of credits in a slew of positions) were more clever or playful with the character and this dynamic, it could have been a really interesting experiment in storytelling, instead, it's just simply bad storytelling.
Soon after the introduction of Crazy Bull comes the killing of the fur hunters - a sequence so mind boggling that everything in me wants to be able to credit it to Fragasso. I had to watch it a couple times to piece what I could together - Somehow the fur hunters are made up of both pioneers and Indians (which completely contradicts the themes in the movie past this segment) who are attacked when this guy just appears in their camp. He just shows up, they panic and they start getting shot and slashed with machetes. The bandits are a rag-tag bunch and there's no way to discriminate them from the pioneers - when I first watched it, I thought it was about a group of settlers being attacked by Indians - you can't tell anybody apart. What makes the segment even more confusing is that is has no sort of sense of reality - a gun pointed right in the foreground shot off would cause a person in the background to keel over, even though there is absolutely no way that the person could have been shot with that weapon. To say that it's poorly directed is only the beginning.
The split-brainness of the film continues, as it moves from this oddball fight, to boring exposition where the films inconsistencies deepen - Shining Sky, the son of white settlers being raised by Apaches, is told (as a grown man) that he's a white man, after everybody jokes about him being white. Then he goes around screaming "I am a white man!" which causes him to land the prettiest maiden in the tribe. However, the rest of the time his whiteness is a source of shame for him. He's discriminated against because of it. The Indians generally hate the white people, and vice versa, but Crazy Bull's sage advice to Shining Sky is, "Learn from the white man, they do not kill"... This comes late into the movie after white people have killed off 90% of the Indians in the film.
As Shining Sky is exodused into white society for accidently killing his brother, it leads to another oddball sequence - his first visit to town. Sky is told to remain mute and try to blend in with white society and keep his Apache identity a secret. Shining Sky then walks into a bar (stop me if you've heard this one), and gets a shot of whiskey, which he downs, and then begins choking as he's never encountered booze before. He's then promptly arrested for not paying the drink. The sheriff roughs him up and takes him outside where a lady asks Shining Sky, while in police custody, if he can help break her horse. Sky does and is hired by the lady to be her stableboy. It happens in about as much time as it took to read that. While not as completely bonkers as anything in Troll 2, it certainly shows some roots that would grow into what would become legend.
Unfortunately, the film does not have many notable points - it's a very, very sprawling film. Poorly structured as well - it pretty much goes from Shining Sky being captured by evil whites and him having to escape, to Rising Sun (his girlfriend) being captured by evil whites and her needing rescue... over and over and over again. Every time you think that he's learned his lesson, the whites get a hold of somebody and the cycle begins again. It's downright tedious at times. The final sequence where Shining Sky faces off against the last of the whites lasts about 15 minutes... of mostly crawling and grunting. No, White Apache doesn't feature some of that "so bad it's good", it features a lot of the "It's so bad, it's painful to watch".
Watching the ending of the film (which I won't spoil even though I never really cared at all and just wanted it to end) is, however, made worth it to watch one sequence that comes out of nowhere. Shining Sky escapes into the woods with a pregnant Rising Sun and the film just cuts to stock footage. A lot of stock footage. Wolves, time lapse clouds over the desert, birds, and, of all things, the ocean. A lot of the ocean in fact. What is it supposed to mean? I have no idea.
Where it fits
When I'm writing about these movies, I'm not trying to be a film critic, or be cooler than the movies or anything like that, but I just gotta say that this is one lousy movie. Where Monster Dog was offensive in being just plain boring and an aggressively mediocre entry into a saturated genre, White Apache suffers from a lot of bad storytelling devices, bad directing, bad acting, but at least has seeds of the insanity that we'd see in the crown gem of the Fragasso collection.
As White Apache comes early in Fragasso's career and early in his tutelage under Mattei, we have to assume that Mattei did most of the heavy lifting here. Which is fine because most of the film is really dull and frankly uninteresting. And while I'd love to attribute most of the crazy bits to Fragasso and claim that this is him starting to peek out of his shell, it would mostly a jump to wishful conclusions. No, this is Mattei's film through and through, but Fragasso was training under Mattei during this time, so while Fragasso may not be responsible for the whole going into town sequence, it definitely seems like, at the very least, a large part of it rubbed off on him.
What’s truly frustrating about this film, and films like it, is that it seems to be made without any care. While it’s understandable to have the mode of production so regimented that the film is basically made as quickly as possible, as cheaply as possible, and as close-to-a-hit as possible, there are many films out there that had somebody simply give a damn and they turned out much better, some are amazing. When taking a film like this apart and trying to assign blame, the place where it truly falls on is the apathy of the production. Was either Mattei or Fragasso really thinking about this movie while making it? No – they were concerned about delivering the film on time and getting the next piece of work into production as soon as possible. So, was there a film that made Fragasso ever really care about what he did, made him refine his craft and make something that he really believed in?
I don’t know. I’m looking – maybe I’ll find it.
Maybe I won’t.
The Claudio Fragasso Challenge, for me, isn't really about having the strength to sit down and watch a handful of bad movies. Anybody can do that. No, at it's heart, the goal of the challenge is to come to an understanding - what lead Fragasso to make such a bizarrely fascinating film like Troll 2 - where did it come from? Was he always making strange films and only Troll 2 took off in popularity? Was Troll 2 the movie that he always wanted to make, but kept pent up inside of him, waiting to burst free in a moment of what some would call pure artistic expression? There's been a lot of research and thousands, if not millions, of words written about the development of the greats like Bergman, Fellini, Godard, etc. I've got a book on my shelf chronicling the development of Woody Allen and his opinions on various subjects over the years.
But not every filmmaker is of that caliber.
Perhaps there's something to learn in the development (Or devolution) of a lesser filmmaker. We study the greats to in striving to be like them, but maybe we should be learning from the mistakes of those who failed to avoid their pitfalls. Maybe we should study the mediocre to see what the genius idols could have been if the right circumstances didn't pop up.
White Apache
A wagon train of unsuspecting fur hunters is attacked by a horde of merciless outlaws, killing all except a pregnant woman. Miraculously, with the assistance of an Apache Chief, she gives birth to a child before dying. The boy is adopted and raised by the Chief and becomes part of the tribe until a tragic twist of fate causes him to accidently kill his Indian brother.Distraught, he leaves the tribe and ventures into the world of the white man. There is no place for a "White Apache" in a society where deception is commonplace, and being different only prompts violence and undeserved prejudice. - The back of the VHS (Typographical errors intact)
This barebones and mechanical description of the film implies a movie about understanding differences, overcoming racial boundaries, and finding your place in the world. Sadly, none of these things actually describe the content in White Apache.
To put things in perspective, this film comes early in Fragasso's career (Troll 2 actually serves as a mid-point), he's directed on his own before, but still continues to partner with Italian trash king Bruno Mattei. Fragasso's involvement on this film is a bit hard to decipher, as it's a film that he co-directed/assistant directed.
Even more confusing is trying to figure out what exactly an Italian Assistant Director does, exactly. In America, the term AD is a bit of a misnomer, it's not a position that traditionally leads to directing, instead it's more about keeping the production on-time/organized. Looking at a bit of Italian film history (Bertolucci was AD to Pasolini, Leone AD'd for De Sica) the title seems to be more of what's referred to in the states as a Second Unit Director - the guy who shoots establishing shots, time-lapse sequences, anything that either needs to be done concurrently or that the primary director doesn't want to bother with. That said, I can't find any source that details explicitly what the position does in Italy, particularly in the assembly-line film houses. (If anybody has an expertise and wants to chime in, I'd be grateful).
So, all of that said, White Apache feels like it has split-brain disease - that different parts were handled by different people. The vast majority of the film seems to be directed by somebody who just didn't really care, as long as the scene's purpose was achieved (or close enough). Then there's some parts that seem to be a little more bizarre... which I can only hope are the early manifestations of the Fragasso style.
The film begins oddly, with an Indian, Crazy Bull, looking into the camera, breaking the fourth wall, telling the audience that the story they're about to watch is one of great importance to the Apache people, however, in order to make the story more palatable, "The Apaches in our story will be speaking our language". If the film was made under more masterful hands, it'd be upheld as a great avant-garde moment in Italian westerns, both in putting the narration in the hands of the Indians whom speaking directly to the audience, and having the Indians call English "our" language... but under Mattei/Fragasso it can only be described as sloppy, it’s a mistake that nobody cared enough to correct. The character of Crazy Bull is an interesting one - he serves as a post-modern narrator, often telling you exactly that, "this is where our story takes a turn" and whatnot. He serves as a reliable narrator to the audience, when inside the narrative, he's regarded as a joke and a loon. Usually if a narrator character is placed inside a story, it's a bit role, or that of a wise or caring elder... in this film he takes the narrator's omniscience to whole new level - at one point Shining Sky, the titular White Apache, is hanged from a tree. Crazy Bull just walks up to him and cuts him down - there's not even a "lucky for you I was just passing by" or "I heard all the commotion and came to check things out"... No, he just walks up to him and cuts him down. If the writers (who weren’t Mattei and Fragasso, but typical Italian film industry workers at the time – they have dozens of credits in a slew of positions) were more clever or playful with the character and this dynamic, it could have been a really interesting experiment in storytelling, instead, it's just simply bad storytelling.
Soon after the introduction of Crazy Bull comes the killing of the fur hunters - a sequence so mind boggling that everything in me wants to be able to credit it to Fragasso. I had to watch it a couple times to piece what I could together - Somehow the fur hunters are made up of both pioneers and Indians (which completely contradicts the themes in the movie past this segment) who are attacked when this guy just appears in their camp. He just shows up, they panic and they start getting shot and slashed with machetes. The bandits are a rag-tag bunch and there's no way to discriminate them from the pioneers - when I first watched it, I thought it was about a group of settlers being attacked by Indians - you can't tell anybody apart. What makes the segment even more confusing is that is has no sort of sense of reality - a gun pointed right in the foreground shot off would cause a person in the background to keel over, even though there is absolutely no way that the person could have been shot with that weapon. To say that it's poorly directed is only the beginning.
The split-brainness of the film continues, as it moves from this oddball fight, to boring exposition where the films inconsistencies deepen - Shining Sky, the son of white settlers being raised by Apaches, is told (as a grown man) that he's a white man, after everybody jokes about him being white. Then he goes around screaming "I am a white man!" which causes him to land the prettiest maiden in the tribe. However, the rest of the time his whiteness is a source of shame for him. He's discriminated against because of it. The Indians generally hate the white people, and vice versa, but Crazy Bull's sage advice to Shining Sky is, "Learn from the white man, they do not kill"... This comes late into the movie after white people have killed off 90% of the Indians in the film.
As Shining Sky is exodused into white society for accidently killing his brother, it leads to another oddball sequence - his first visit to town. Sky is told to remain mute and try to blend in with white society and keep his Apache identity a secret. Shining Sky then walks into a bar (stop me if you've heard this one), and gets a shot of whiskey, which he downs, and then begins choking as he's never encountered booze before. He's then promptly arrested for not paying the drink. The sheriff roughs him up and takes him outside where a lady asks Shining Sky, while in police custody, if he can help break her horse. Sky does and is hired by the lady to be her stableboy. It happens in about as much time as it took to read that. While not as completely bonkers as anything in Troll 2, it certainly shows some roots that would grow into what would become legend.
Unfortunately, the film does not have many notable points - it's a very, very sprawling film. Poorly structured as well - it pretty much goes from Shining Sky being captured by evil whites and him having to escape, to Rising Sun (his girlfriend) being captured by evil whites and her needing rescue... over and over and over again. Every time you think that he's learned his lesson, the whites get a hold of somebody and the cycle begins again. It's downright tedious at times. The final sequence where Shining Sky faces off against the last of the whites lasts about 15 minutes... of mostly crawling and grunting. No, White Apache doesn't feature some of that "so bad it's good", it features a lot of the "It's so bad, it's painful to watch".
Watching the ending of the film (which I won't spoil even though I never really cared at all and just wanted it to end) is, however, made worth it to watch one sequence that comes out of nowhere. Shining Sky escapes into the woods with a pregnant Rising Sun and the film just cuts to stock footage. A lot of stock footage. Wolves, time lapse clouds over the desert, birds, and, of all things, the ocean. A lot of the ocean in fact. What is it supposed to mean? I have no idea.
Where it fits
When I'm writing about these movies, I'm not trying to be a film critic, or be cooler than the movies or anything like that, but I just gotta say that this is one lousy movie. Where Monster Dog was offensive in being just plain boring and an aggressively mediocre entry into a saturated genre, White Apache suffers from a lot of bad storytelling devices, bad directing, bad acting, but at least has seeds of the insanity that we'd see in the crown gem of the Fragasso collection.
As White Apache comes early in Fragasso's career and early in his tutelage under Mattei, we have to assume that Mattei did most of the heavy lifting here. Which is fine because most of the film is really dull and frankly uninteresting. And while I'd love to attribute most of the crazy bits to Fragasso and claim that this is him starting to peek out of his shell, it would mostly a jump to wishful conclusions. No, this is Mattei's film through and through, but Fragasso was training under Mattei during this time, so while Fragasso may not be responsible for the whole going into town sequence, it definitely seems like, at the very least, a large part of it rubbed off on him.
What’s truly frustrating about this film, and films like it, is that it seems to be made without any care. While it’s understandable to have the mode of production so regimented that the film is basically made as quickly as possible, as cheaply as possible, and as close-to-a-hit as possible, there are many films out there that had somebody simply give a damn and they turned out much better, some are amazing. When taking a film like this apart and trying to assign blame, the place where it truly falls on is the apathy of the production. Was either Mattei or Fragasso really thinking about this movie while making it? No – they were concerned about delivering the film on time and getting the next piece of work into production as soon as possible. So, was there a film that made Fragasso ever really care about what he did, made him refine his craft and make something that he really believed in?
I don’t know. I’m looking – maybe I’ll find it.
Maybe I won’t.
The Claudio Fragasso Challenge: Monster Dog
Unquestionably the breakout hit of this year's SXSW was the documentary "Best Worst Movie" covering the stars and cult phenomenon that surrounds the movie Troll 2. The documentary is very deserving of the praise, it's surprisingly emotional, you really connect with the characters and it's just better than any movie on the subject of Troll 2 has any right to be.
Oh, and I'm not just saying this because I appear in the film.
One event that I ended up attending during the fest was the SXSW BBQ run, where they took a van full of people out to Lockhart to get the real authentic stuff... After 2-and-a-half months of living in LA, I couldn't wait for it. On the ride over, I shared a van with Troll 2 actor/Best Worst Movie director Michael Paul Stephenson and Cinematical/FearNet writer Scott Weinberg. While many things were discussed, movies at the fest, Twitter, that sort of thing. Eventually the subject of Claudio Fragasso, director of Troll 2 came up. In Best Worst Movie Claduio makes great claims to be a great film director, and that Troll 2 is a great, political film that fans are embracing because it's so good. While it's easy to refute the stuff pertaining to Troll 2, it soon became clear that nobody in the van had ever seen another Claudio Fragasso film.
Thus, the challenge. Scott Weinberg put it up (naming me specifically) and going with the whole, "Wow, that's a terrible idea, it's going to be hilarious when I do it" vibe that inhabits a lot of my life, I soon began crawling the internet to find the rest of Claduio's catalogue.
The Problem
The filmography of Claudio Fragrasso is deceptively long, IMDB lists him as the director of 22 films, but looking further into them, most of them he co-directed with prolific schlock director Bruno Mattei. Mattei is infamous, himself, for just churning out low-budget films in the 70s, mostly dealing in rip-offs and "sequels" to movies that he had nothing to do with, both of which are staples of Italian cinema at the time. Mattei's work mostly covers zombie films, Black Emanuelle films (the unauthorized Emmanuelle films starring Laura Gemser, the beauty who would end up doing costume design for Troll 2), and even ended up doing a rip-off film called Terminator 2 (which, of course, had nothing to do with the series we all know and love).
Mattei would frequently team up with Fragrasso or other filmmakers such as Joe D'amato (who would end up doing a movie called Troll 3), so that he could churn out movies back-to-back just to get more products out into the marketplace. Fragasso is additionally credited on his Mattei team-ups as Assistant Director, making his function on these films much less clear.
Out of the 22 films Fragasso has credit for, he only did 14 on his own. Of those 14, only 2 are readily available in the United States (Monster Dog and Troll 2). I'm working on figuring out which Italian DVDs have English subtitles, but it's very difficult, as even finding the Italian versions is proving to be very difficult, and they're not consistent in their feature listing. Some don't even have official Italian releases, only living on in the grey market DVD-R world.
This is proving more difficult than I had anticipated.
Monster Dog
Monster Dog is the first film both written and directed by Claudio Fragasso (using the pseudonym "Clyde Anderson" for the directing credit)- no co-writer, no co-director, nothing. It's the only film that he would both write and direct on his own, leaving it the only "pure" example of what Fragasso was trying to accomplish in his film career.
While nothing that compares to the cult phenomenon that encircles Troll 2, Monster Dog, surprisingly, has its own cult following - mainly because the lead role is played by none other than Alice Cooper. Cooper, of course, one of the innovators of "shock rock", seems like a fitting person to head up a low-budget Spanish film directed by an Italian. The film features two songs by Cooper that would not be available otherwise until 1999 - these would also be the only times that Cooper's voice is in the film. For whatever reason (either Cooper's refusal, money concerns, or Fragasso's simple not caring) Cooper did not dub his line for the English version of the film.
Here's the song that begins the movie:
Now, let's be fair about this video - immediately following it Cooper's character of Vincent Raven (Not a bad rock name for any aspiring rockers out there) comments on the video, saying that it's awful and the reason for their road trip (hence the long drawn out shots of the van) is to make a new video (which they end up shooting, but to a completely different song). [The Texan Film Nerd in me wants to point out really quick just how wrong it is to have his James Bond iteration using a revolver, thus proving that some stereotypes about Texans are true.]
So how does the movie compare to Troll 2?
It's an utter disappointment.
While Troll 2 is by most every metric a bad movie, it has a certain charm, a certain "what the fuck?" factor to it - scenes that are out of nowhere, a plot that makes little-to-no-sense, irrational actions by characters... it's completely foreign to all of our senses and it leaves us wondering what kind of nutball made it. No, Monster Dog fails in the worst way it could have - it's completely generic and forgettable. Instead of being another piece of bizarre fascination for us, it serves as just another bad horror movie that would find it's home in a stack of VHS movies just like it at a 1995 pre-teen sleepover.
The movie disappoints in such a unique way, I picked up hoping that I'd neither be able to make heads nor tails of it, but instead... it's a straightforward "teens"-in-a-cabin-in-the-woods movie. Yes, it's supposed to be in a small town, but they never leave the house (which is a Nosferatu-esque mansion for reasons that are never addressed in the movie). It has all the tropes you would expect in a nameless movie from the genre: a forewarning from a mysterious stranger, a nightmare sequence, something trying to get inside, somebody hiding their sinister secret... but nothing done in any sort of new or interesting way, even for the time. It is completely indistinguishable from anything else in this genre from this time period.
Monster Dog also disappoints by actually having some funny exchanges - some intentionally funny exchanges - between Cooper and the rest of his crew. Nobody says anything completely outlandish, it all makes relative sense. Sure, some of the stuff doesn't make perfect sense - but in relation to the genre, it falls in line... For instance, when first arriving at the house and searching for the caretaker Raven takes along a fully-loaded shotgun, where other times when it would be more appropriate to be armed, he goes without. It's not quite logical human behavior, but with the standard set so high... it's hardly worth noting.
No, with watching Monster Dog, we have to re-examine our look at Claudio Fragasso. Sure, he's not a great director by any means - the performances are terrible, technically it's not that well made (The dubbing is bad for even an Italian film of the era), but he's not the complete psycho that we were all hoping for. Instead, he's just another guy who put out lame movies.
The Upside
This leaves us in an interesting position - if Claudio Fragasso is not the sheer lunatic that we were hoping for, why is Troll 2 so insane? Fragasso establishes himself as a completely competent writer in this film, making us ask things like "Where did things like the popcorn-laden sex scene come from? How did the whole 'Row-Row-Row Your Boat' being 'that song I like so much' exchange originate?" Looking over this film and its construction makes me wonder if Rossella Drudi, Fragasso's co-writer on Troll 2 and wife, is the real source of the lunacy.
That's not to say that it doesn't explain some aspects of Troll 2, the Monster Dog itself is a poorly made puppet that has basically cannot move besides its mouth and needs to be mostly obstructed. The setup of the two films is essentially the same - a group of people out in the middle-of-nowhere who become attacked by some sort of unnatural beast that inhabits the area. But these similarities aren't enough to connect the two in any real meaningful sort of way. Basically put: If I didn't know that Claudio Fragasso had directed both movies, I would have never made the connection.
Usually when a film leaves us asking questions it's a good thing, it's caused us to examine some part of ourself, to take another look at a value that we hold dear, but no, Monster Dog leaves us asking questions because it has accomplished pretty much nothing.
Oh, and I'm not just saying this because I appear in the film.
One event that I ended up attending during the fest was the SXSW BBQ run, where they took a van full of people out to Lockhart to get the real authentic stuff... After 2-and-a-half months of living in LA, I couldn't wait for it. On the ride over, I shared a van with Troll 2 actor/Best Worst Movie director Michael Paul Stephenson and Cinematical/FearNet writer Scott Weinberg. While many things were discussed, movies at the fest, Twitter, that sort of thing. Eventually the subject of Claudio Fragasso, director of Troll 2 came up. In Best Worst Movie Claduio makes great claims to be a great film director, and that Troll 2 is a great, political film that fans are embracing because it's so good. While it's easy to refute the stuff pertaining to Troll 2, it soon became clear that nobody in the van had ever seen another Claudio Fragasso film.
Thus, the challenge. Scott Weinberg put it up (naming me specifically) and going with the whole, "Wow, that's a terrible idea, it's going to be hilarious when I do it" vibe that inhabits a lot of my life, I soon began crawling the internet to find the rest of Claduio's catalogue.
The Problem
The filmography of Claudio Fragrasso is deceptively long, IMDB lists him as the director of 22 films, but looking further into them, most of them he co-directed with prolific schlock director Bruno Mattei. Mattei is infamous, himself, for just churning out low-budget films in the 70s, mostly dealing in rip-offs and "sequels" to movies that he had nothing to do with, both of which are staples of Italian cinema at the time. Mattei's work mostly covers zombie films, Black Emanuelle films (the unauthorized Emmanuelle films starring Laura Gemser, the beauty who would end up doing costume design for Troll 2), and even ended up doing a rip-off film called Terminator 2 (which, of course, had nothing to do with the series we all know and love).
Mattei would frequently team up with Fragrasso or other filmmakers such as Joe D'amato (who would end up doing a movie called Troll 3), so that he could churn out movies back-to-back just to get more products out into the marketplace. Fragasso is additionally credited on his Mattei team-ups as Assistant Director, making his function on these films much less clear.
Out of the 22 films Fragasso has credit for, he only did 14 on his own. Of those 14, only 2 are readily available in the United States (Monster Dog and Troll 2). I'm working on figuring out which Italian DVDs have English subtitles, but it's very difficult, as even finding the Italian versions is proving to be very difficult, and they're not consistent in their feature listing. Some don't even have official Italian releases, only living on in the grey market DVD-R world.
This is proving more difficult than I had anticipated.
Monster Dog
Monster Dog is the first film both written and directed by Claudio Fragasso (using the pseudonym "Clyde Anderson" for the directing credit)- no co-writer, no co-director, nothing. It's the only film that he would both write and direct on his own, leaving it the only "pure" example of what Fragasso was trying to accomplish in his film career.
While nothing that compares to the cult phenomenon that encircles Troll 2, Monster Dog, surprisingly, has its own cult following - mainly because the lead role is played by none other than Alice Cooper. Cooper, of course, one of the innovators of "shock rock", seems like a fitting person to head up a low-budget Spanish film directed by an Italian. The film features two songs by Cooper that would not be available otherwise until 1999 - these would also be the only times that Cooper's voice is in the film. For whatever reason (either Cooper's refusal, money concerns, or Fragasso's simple not caring) Cooper did not dub his line for the English version of the film.
Here's the song that begins the movie:
Now, let's be fair about this video - immediately following it Cooper's character of Vincent Raven (Not a bad rock name for any aspiring rockers out there) comments on the video, saying that it's awful and the reason for their road trip (hence the long drawn out shots of the van) is to make a new video (which they end up shooting, but to a completely different song). [The Texan Film Nerd in me wants to point out really quick just how wrong it is to have his James Bond iteration using a revolver, thus proving that some stereotypes about Texans are true.]
So how does the movie compare to Troll 2?
It's an utter disappointment.
While Troll 2 is by most every metric a bad movie, it has a certain charm, a certain "what the fuck?" factor to it - scenes that are out of nowhere, a plot that makes little-to-no-sense, irrational actions by characters... it's completely foreign to all of our senses and it leaves us wondering what kind of nutball made it. No, Monster Dog fails in the worst way it could have - it's completely generic and forgettable. Instead of being another piece of bizarre fascination for us, it serves as just another bad horror movie that would find it's home in a stack of VHS movies just like it at a 1995 pre-teen sleepover.
The movie disappoints in such a unique way, I picked up hoping that I'd neither be able to make heads nor tails of it, but instead... it's a straightforward "teens"-in-a-cabin-in-the-woods movie. Yes, it's supposed to be in a small town, but they never leave the house (which is a Nosferatu-esque mansion for reasons that are never addressed in the movie). It has all the tropes you would expect in a nameless movie from the genre: a forewarning from a mysterious stranger, a nightmare sequence, something trying to get inside, somebody hiding their sinister secret... but nothing done in any sort of new or interesting way, even for the time. It is completely indistinguishable from anything else in this genre from this time period.
Monster Dog also disappoints by actually having some funny exchanges - some intentionally funny exchanges - between Cooper and the rest of his crew. Nobody says anything completely outlandish, it all makes relative sense. Sure, some of the stuff doesn't make perfect sense - but in relation to the genre, it falls in line... For instance, when first arriving at the house and searching for the caretaker Raven takes along a fully-loaded shotgun, where other times when it would be more appropriate to be armed, he goes without. It's not quite logical human behavior, but with the standard set so high... it's hardly worth noting.
No, with watching Monster Dog, we have to re-examine our look at Claudio Fragasso. Sure, he's not a great director by any means - the performances are terrible, technically it's not that well made (The dubbing is bad for even an Italian film of the era), but he's not the complete psycho that we were all hoping for. Instead, he's just another guy who put out lame movies.
The Upside
This leaves us in an interesting position - if Claudio Fragasso is not the sheer lunatic that we were hoping for, why is Troll 2 so insane? Fragasso establishes himself as a completely competent writer in this film, making us ask things like "Where did things like the popcorn-laden sex scene come from? How did the whole 'Row-Row-Row Your Boat' being 'that song I like so much' exchange originate?" Looking over this film and its construction makes me wonder if Rossella Drudi, Fragasso's co-writer on Troll 2 and wife, is the real source of the lunacy.
That's not to say that it doesn't explain some aspects of Troll 2, the Monster Dog itself is a poorly made puppet that has basically cannot move besides its mouth and needs to be mostly obstructed. The setup of the two films is essentially the same - a group of people out in the middle-of-nowhere who become attacked by some sort of unnatural beast that inhabits the area. But these similarities aren't enough to connect the two in any real meaningful sort of way. Basically put: If I didn't know that Claudio Fragasso had directed both movies, I would have never made the connection.
Usually when a film leaves us asking questions it's a good thing, it's caused us to examine some part of ourself, to take another look at a value that we hold dear, but no, Monster Dog leaves us asking questions because it has accomplished pretty much nothing.
From Hired to Fired in two-and-a-half hours.
I was trying to sleep in a little bit. A little bit of drinking and such lead to a late, late, late night and I was catching up on some sleep. So, I was kinda surprised that I even heard the phone ring (I tend to not to, especially since now my ringtone is the instrumental to C.R.E.A.M.) But seeing who was calling, I answered, we'd been talking about seeing Che, maybe today was the day.
Instead, he offered me up a job PA'ing on a photo shoot. Sure, I'm not doing anything. A couple of phone calls later, I'm all set up and have my instructions. I was to knock around for a couple of hours, then go to a hotel in Beverly Hills, pick up a car and drive it 5 miles downtown and then hang out for the rest of the day. For $200 (Day rate) I could certainly do that.
The waiting around part was easy, a little bit more sleep, caught up on Battlestar Gallactica, ate some food, etc. No problem. I went down to the hotel and found a neighborhood that I could park in for free (I wasn't sure if they'd reimburse me for parking, so might as well play it safe) and got to the hotel. I told them the car I wanted, and they sent somebody for it - security was pretty lax, I didn't even tell them the name that the person on the phone. Maybe if this movie business goes south I can work boosting cars using this method.
They pull the car around and things are going great. I have a full hour to get downtown. I've never seen traffic that bad, I'll probably be early for once in my life, things are great. That is, until I get down and see the car is a stick shift. I can't drive stick. I even told the person on the phone that I can't and they assured me it was a stick (turns out every other car involved was an automatic, I just got the luck of the draw). Panic sets in. I called up a friend who lived nearby to see if he could drive stick, just grasping at straws. No go. I'm out of options. So, I make the call and, yup, lose the job as quickly as I got it. (Thank God that I didn't pay for parking!)
So a pretty funny story. But that's not the only reason I'm writing this up.
Like so many, I'm an avid Twitterer. I pretty much got addicted to it as soon as I started it. So as the events unfolded I kept the twitterstream updated. Looking back, it's kind of an interesting well to tell a story:
Things kick off:
I waste some time:
It was a really good episode. Shut up.
Then things go south...
and finally...
The story told in real-time and as it happened. Its concise, to-the-point, funny, and doesn't make too much of it (unlike this blog post. Haha.) Basically put: For this story, the twitter feed is perhaps the best way to tell the story. While Twitter is useful for a lot of things, I haven't seen it being tapped for storytelling besides the fictional MadMen accounts (which was fun until they became too self-indulgent and involved the outside world too much).
We've all been told by pundits that new media would result in new ways of storytelling, but so far that's mostly proven false. YouTube was changed access, but not storytelling method. The choose-your-own-adventure-type webpages are exercises in patience, and interactive movies are still fun little gimmicks until you get five choices in and see why interactivity in storytelling isn't necessarily a good thing.
With Twitter, a story is condensed (form changes), delivered differently (accessibility changes), interactive without being interactive (Communication changes - readers can send replies that can be addressed or dismissed), it's everything that we've been promised.
So could this be something? Or am I just excited over nothing?
Instead, he offered me up a job PA'ing on a photo shoot. Sure, I'm not doing anything. A couple of phone calls later, I'm all set up and have my instructions. I was to knock around for a couple of hours, then go to a hotel in Beverly Hills, pick up a car and drive it 5 miles downtown and then hang out for the rest of the day. For $200 (Day rate) I could certainly do that.
The waiting around part was easy, a little bit more sleep, caught up on Battlestar Gallactica, ate some food, etc. No problem. I went down to the hotel and found a neighborhood that I could park in for free (I wasn't sure if they'd reimburse me for parking, so might as well play it safe) and got to the hotel. I told them the car I wanted, and they sent somebody for it - security was pretty lax, I didn't even tell them the name that the person on the phone. Maybe if this movie business goes south I can work boosting cars using this method.
They pull the car around and things are going great. I have a full hour to get downtown. I've never seen traffic that bad, I'll probably be early for once in my life, things are great. That is, until I get down and see the car is a stick shift. I can't drive stick. I even told the person on the phone that I can't and they assured me it was a stick (turns out every other car involved was an automatic, I just got the luck of the draw). Panic sets in. I called up a friend who lived nearby to see if he could drive stick, just grasping at straws. No go. I'm out of options. So, I make the call and, yup, lose the job as quickly as I got it. (Thank God that I didn't pay for parking!)
So a pretty funny story. But that's not the only reason I'm writing this up.
Like so many, I'm an avid Twitterer. I pretty much got addicted to it as soon as I started it. So as the events unfolded I kept the twitterstream updated. Looking back, it's kind of an interesting well to tell a story:
Things kick off:
Picked up a job for the day. Damn things happen out here!
2:59 PM Jan 31st from twhirl
I waste some time:
oh jesus christ gallactica
4:38 PM Jan 31st from twhirl
Going to work now, but I have to admit, I'm a little emotional after watching Battlestar Galactica.
4:51 PM Jan 31st from twhirl
It was a really good episode. Shut up.
Then things go south...
So I was supposed to just drive this car to the shoot... But it's a stick... I don't think this is gonna work out.
5:21 PM Jan 31st from TwitterFon
and finally...
Ok. Lost this job. Who drives stick these days? We invented computers for a reason.
5:32 PM Jan 31st from TwitterFon
The story told in real-time and as it happened. Its concise, to-the-point, funny, and doesn't make too much of it (unlike this blog post. Haha.) Basically put: For this story, the twitter feed is perhaps the best way to tell the story. While Twitter is useful for a lot of things, I haven't seen it being tapped for storytelling besides the fictional MadMen accounts (which was fun until they became too self-indulgent and involved the outside world too much).
We've all been told by pundits that new media would result in new ways of storytelling, but so far that's mostly proven false. YouTube was changed access, but not storytelling method. The choose-your-own-adventure-type webpages are exercises in patience, and interactive movies are still fun little gimmicks until you get five choices in and see why interactivity in storytelling isn't necessarily a good thing.
With Twitter, a story is condensed (form changes), delivered differently (accessibility changes), interactive without being interactive (Communication changes - readers can send replies that can be addressed or dismissed), it's everything that we've been promised.
So could this be something? Or am I just excited over nothing?