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APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: LOWLIFE (2012)

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DIRECTED BY: Seth A. Smith

FEATURING: Chik White, Kate Hartigan, Mitchell Wiebe, voice of John Urich

PLOT: Asa reappears after six months to join his friend Elle before a bad trip triggers a journey to a remote island littered with drug-secreting starfish.

Still from Lowlife (2012)

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: Though hewing toward gritty realism, the plot hook—starfish drug—as well as the recurring hallucinations—narrated by a mystical dog—combine to create a singular something which is as strange as it is unsettling.

COMMENTS: Addiction has rarely looked this icky. A typical drug movie usually takes some effort to showcase the fun part: gathering with friends, experiencing euphoria, and the overall feeling of jolliness before the tragic results of substance abuse rear their heads. Lowlife diminishes these easy-times considerably through the drug in question: the brownish secretions of rather unhealthy looking starfish. While the characters do appear to appreciate the ensuing, loopy high, Seth Smith obliges the audience to endure a smearful dampness; and then, of course, hits his characters with the nasty ramifications.

The movie’s time-flow is somewhat uncertain, with three different narrative chains interlocking. The segments in color feature Asa, increasingly disheveled, as he roots through the murk of shallow streams in search of something. Black and white footage is used for the sequences involving Asa, Elle, and eventually the foppishly mysterious drug dealer Damon. Asa and Elle have a reunion—a reluctant one, as far as Elle’s concerned—which begins icily, but improves to the point that Asa reveals and shares what’s in his cooler. When these entities die from exposure (Asa is convinced Elle left the cooler lid off on purpose; Elle insists otherwise), the drug movie tragedy kicks off, catalyzed by a visit to Damon, who really creeps out Elle—her fear of telephoning him is palpable—but who also has two well-cared-for starfish to share.

The third block of narrative is the most cryptic. Black and white, and projected, it seems, 8mm-style, with a thick narration provided with its own subtitles, despite being in English. Nature, breezes, and words of fate, doom, and redemption. These are from the perspective of a dog, or perhaps dog spirit. (Smith is not hung-up on the viewer knowing what’s happening at the moment, so long as they feel what’s happening.) The dog-visions culminate alongside Asa’s arrival at his nadir, when Lowlife tilts briefly but fantastically to existentially unsettling body horror.

And so, the viewer is doomed with Asa; and Smith quietly shocks and awes in his feature debut. He would continue his evil-organism-tinged angst some years later with his sophomore effort, Tin Can. (This time with ill-omened fungus.) Lowlife is an unpleasant experience, but a worthwhile one—and a worthy member of the drug tragedy canon.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Somewhere in between William S. Burroughs and David Lynch… portrays the banal life of an addict using its own internal logic and with the help of some hallucinative imagery and a heavy dose of surrealism.”–Zev Toledano, The Worldwide Celluloid Massacre

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APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: FATA MORGANA (1966)

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AKA Left–Handed Fate; Fata/Morgana

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DIRECTED BY: Vincente Aranda

FEATURING: Teresa Gimpera, Marianne Benet, Antonio Ferrandes, Alberto Dalbés

PLOT: When a literature professor predicts an advertising model will be the next victim of a black-gloved serial killer, a secret agent sets out to save her life.

Still from Fata Morgana (1966)

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: Inspired by quick-change artist extraordinaire Leopoldo Fregoli, Fata/Morgana dons the garb of several genres (fumetti, spy thriller, science fiction, giallo) only to disrobe just as quickly. Set during an unspecified cataclysmic event anticipating ‘s The Falls, the viewing experience mirrors an unsettled narrative reality. The killer’s identity is revealed early on but leads to an entirely unexpected outcome, and a closing scene eerily similar to Blow–Up‘s contentious and equally inconclusive ending (released the same year). Like the main character, the viewer is adrift amidst a world of shifting symbols. The eclectic style, along with the mysterious backdrop, ambiguous characters, and a uniquely bizarre murder weapon combine to create a Pop Art concoction with a seriously unhinged vibe.

COMMENTS: What would you do if you accidentally bumped into a blind man on the street and he said you were going to be murdered today? Poor Gim understandably freaks out. She doesn’t want to die, but she’s decided to stay behind while the rest of her unnamed city’s residents flee en masse. A mysterious catastrophe has occurred in London, and fear of it happening in other cities has rapidly spread around the globe.

Introduced via comic book panels set to an uptempo jazz beat, Fata Morgana aligns itself with the artistic sensibility of European adult comics and the beginnings of the giallo craze (‘s Blood and Black Lace was released two years earlier). The Professor (Ferrandis) prepares to present a lecture on the career of an unidentified serial killer, seen in black and white photographs clad in classic fedora with black trench coat and leather gloves. His victims are all young female models. The Professor’s careful study of horror literature, advertising imagery, and popular films leads to his “premonition” that cologne spokesmodel Gim (Gimpera) will be the killer’s next target.

Gim meets with friends and attends her modeling shoots, trying to retain some semblance of normality. Someone slashes her car tires, so she’s left to walk deserted streets between appointments. Her chance encounters with the city’s remaining inhabitants become increasingly threatening. A gang of silent teenage boys roams the city stealing billboards and appliances to create their own modernist clubhouse. The Professor gives a lecture on how to identify the victims of future crime, then stalks Gim while wearing a series of improbable disguises. Miriam (Benet), a survivor of the London event, spends hours in an “art chamber” staring at sculptures, before wandering the city in an aimless quest to find her lover Jerry (though enigmatic flashbacks suggest he’s already dead). Meanwhile, Agent JJ (Martí) desperately tries to save Gim from the killer while being thwarted by The Professor and everyone else he meets.

All Gim’s friends spout philosophy while trying to process their own impending doom in revealing yet pretentious dialogue:

“When we are awake, we all live in the same world, but when we dream, each lives in his own.”

“A chessboard has no place for dreams. Who wins in chess, loses in life.”

“To be or not to be. To die. To sleep. To sleep, perchance to dream,” Gim chants in stream of consciousness while displaying a bottle of cologne. “But I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die.”

“Very good, very good. Repeat just the last sentence,” says the photographer, “but this time smile.”

Like Blow–Up seen from the other side of the camera, the female model grapples with the deceptive nature of photographic images, well aware of advertising’s false promises. In a collapsing world, do luxury goods and status symbols still have meaning? When official loudspeakers announce that people can actually live without “superfluous objects” and all you need to start a new life is a suitcase small enough to carry onto a plane? The anti-consumerism now seems like another random element in a narrative constructed of jumbled ideas, but Fata Morgana‘s themes obviously resonated at the time of its release. Echoes can be seen in films by directors as disparate as , , and Peter Greenaway.

The tone, alternating fatalism and optimism, still feels relevant today. In the end, the professor’s theory proves to be wrong, the London event goes unexplained, but Gim’s valiant struggle to maintain her humanity continues. She keeps walking, leaving the city behind as the camera moves away from her until a green field fills the frame.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…a wild, disorienting, surreal mash-up of Pop Art, science fiction, thriller, and horror.”–Michael Barrett, Pop Matters (Blu-ray)

Fata Morgana [Blu-ray]

Fata Morgana [Blu-ray]
  • First U.S. Blu-ray release for this 1960’s psychedelic Euro-thriller.
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APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE (2024)

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DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: Matthew Rankin, Rojina Esmaeili, Saba Vahedyousefi, Pirouz Nemati

PLOT: The lives of a civil servant, a tour guide, two girls searching for a way to thaw a banknote frozen in ice, and a turkey magnate collide in a Winnipeg where everyone inexplicably speaks Farsi.

Still from universal language (2024)

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: Rankin’s icy fantasia is the premier (well, only) fusion of Canadian absurdism and Iranian neorealism.

COMMENTS: You’re a director infatuated with Iranian realist dramas, but you live in Winnipeg. What do you do? Round up every Farsi speaker in Manitoba and put them into a comedy set in Canada, obviously. Be sure to include a guy wandering around dressed like a Christmas tree, a shrine to an abandoned briefcase, and a turkey beauty contest-winner, just for that added note of realism.

Universal Language‘s plot is a woven Persian rug, composed of three major strands: two sisters hunt for a way to retrieve a 500 Rial note they find frozen under several inches of ice, a disillusioned civil servant returns home after an unhappy stint in Quebec, and a tour guide leads a bored group through the city’s bland attractions (“Winnipeg is a strange destination for tourism”). Most of the action occurs in a range from Winnipeg’s Beige District all the way to its Grey District, along bazaar-like streets bustling with street vendors. And surprisingly, despite its many detours though drag bingo parlors, Persian Tim Hortons, and shots of beautiful turkeys, in the end every plot corner clicks in place like a piece in a puzzle. It’s thoroughly comedic and absurd, but by the time Rankin turns sincere for the ending, it works, because the committed comedy of the earlier scenes seduces you into accepting this bizarre world as a real place.

Rankin’s debut feature, The Twentieth Century, was (to say the least) heavily indebted to (who Ranking calls “one of my cinematic parents”). Here, Rankin moves only slightly out of the shadow of Maddin, only to position himself under a canopy of other directors. Scenes like the guy who dresses as a Christmas tree, and other dreamlike comic surprises I won’t spoil, could have been dreamed up by . The bit where Matthew buys sleeping pills would fit comfortably in a sketch. Besides these, there’s all the Iranian directors, led by . (Several of Universal Language‘s plotlines are lifted from Iranian movies, although heavily warped and refracted by the narrative lens.) And in an interview included with the press kit, Rankin acknowledges everyone from to to the (among the less obscure names) as influences. In some sense, Universal Language nothing but a shameless pastiche of homages; but, because it reflects such specific tastes and obsessions, it creates a unique universe. And paradoxically, that very eclecticism is what makes the film so relatable. Rankin isn’t shy about his influences, which is refreshing. He’s working towards a cinema of tributes. And cinema is a universal language.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“By converting his drab hometown into an exotic land filled with nostalgia (albeit a very niche nostalgia, primarily for Criterion Channel subscribers), Rankin seems to be seeking out the universal language of cinema itself. In his own very weird way he manages to find it, turning an everyday place into something momentarily special — which is what all good movies are meant to do.”–Jordan Mintzer, The Hollywood Reporter (festival screening)

It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue, List Candidates

APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: DETENTION (2011)

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DIRECTED BY: Joseph Kahn

FEATURING: Shanley Caswell, Josh Hutcherson, Spencer Locke, Aaron David Johnson, Dane Cook

PLOT: A serial killer is loose in the halls of Grizzly Lake High, and there may be a connection with events 20 years in the past; only a pair of eye-rolling millennials, uncool vegetarian klutz Riley and popular slacker screwup Clapton, can save the day.

Still from Detention (2011)

WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE APOCRYPHA: Plenty of movies like to subvert audience expectations by mixing genres and deploying radical shifts in tone. Yet it’s hard to recall a film that pursues these goals with such ruthlessness, rapidity, and thoroughness as Detention. The filmmakers practically carpet-bomb the audience with twists, references, and backstories, producing a tale of such density the only people who could possibly keep track of it all are the men who made it. Detention is a movie that would make Dennis Miller say, “Whoa, Chachi, dial it back with the pop culture smorgasbord.”

COMMENTS: The opening credits of Detention are the essence of the whole film in microcosm: exceedingly clever, with names appearing in every possible location: sneaker brand, chocolate bar, upchuck in a urinal. (The director reserves that last one for himself.) Several have even been thoughtfully chosen to match, like the costume designer’s name stitched on a letter jacket or the sound designer appearing on a fire alarm. The flip side to this visual wit is that the names go by so quickly, amidst so much activity and chaos, that there is precious little opportunity to take the information in. The signal is overwhelmed by the noise, and you feel assaulted rather than edified. This will become a theme.

Even if Detention weren’t determined to be some kind of tonal chimera, it would still be a massive millennial snarkfest. The first five minutes play out as a kind of Clueless-meets-Scream, as a too-cool ice princess outlines the secret to high school success (complete with whip-pan edits and onscreen text) before having her head briskly removed from her body. It’s a whole postmodern vibe, and it telegraphs the desire of director Kahn and co-screenwriter Mark Palermo to pile on the jokes and references like so many hats on hats. But this is just an appetizer. The movie adds characters and plotlines like courses in a fancy meal. After introductions to our heroes, all the other high school archetypes get their turns in the spotlight, including the blond cheerleader, the lunkhead jock, the nerdy sidekick, the tech wizard, the bitter administrator… heck, even the stuffed bear that serves as the school’s mascot gets its own storyline. But Detention finds its own path by layering on incongruous genre elements that stupefy with their appearance. Time travel, UFOs, body swapping, predestination paradox, Cronenbergian body horror, and even a Minority Report-style touchless interface are among the twists and turns that arrive unexpectedly.

It’s tempting to view Detention as a parody or send-up of horror and teen comedy genres, and it does work on that level. But Kahn is such a committed nerd that you have to take all the sci-fi tropes as legitimate ventures into the genre. For all the seeming randomness of each new element, the film studiously connects everything in the end. No matter how arbitrary – a cheesy horror film within the film, a teenager obsessed with the 90s, a legend of a student engaging in sexual congress with a stuffed animal – it all ties into the plot. And cast’s commitment to playing every bizarre left turn earnestly (especially Caswell, who should have found a springboard to stardom here) helps keep you engaged, even as the dense plot pushes you away.

Kahn, an incredibly successful music video director, is excited for the opportunity to try his hand at the big-screen format. (He reportedly provided the bulk of the budget himself.) He’s willing to take his lumps – one student speaks disparagingly of his debut feature Torque, while another snarkily references the coke habits of music video directors – and he puts his experience to work on some appealingly offbeat setpieces. Easily the film’s highlight is a montage of one student’s 19-year-long detention, a one-shot tour backwards through changing fashion styles and popular music of the day. But Kahn also refuses to let a moment be a moment, and every bit of wackiness is decorated with more wackiness, so that there’s no real opportunity to take any of it in. Like a McFlurry with a dozen different mix-ins, it’s undeniably sweet, but dizzying and ultimately too much.

For a film as cravenly derivative as Detention, there’s honestly nothing quite like it. It stands as a fascinating artifact, a celluloid Katamari Damacy collecting genres and tropes and stereotypes into one big stew. It’s a piece of pop art, fascinating to observe even if difficult to admire.   

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“A seriously (and unapologetically) bizarre piece of work… while Kahn deserves some credit for attempting something different within the teen-movie genre, Detention is simply (and finally) too weird and too off-the-wall to become anything more than a mildly amusing curiosity.” – David Nusair, Reel Film Reviews

(This movie was nominated for review by David. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.) 

Detention

Detention
  • Blu-ray
  • AC-3, Blu-ray, Dolby
  • English (Audio Description), German (Subtitled), French (Subtitled)
  • 1
  • 93
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SLAMDANCE FILM FESTIVAL: APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: UNIVERSE 25 (2025)

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DIRECTED BY: Richard Melkonian

FEATURING: Giacomo Gex, Jacob Meadows

PLOT: Mott is directed to find a saint and a sacrificial lamb before the world ends this coming Sunday; Jacob, a postman who discovers Mott’s chronicle in the dead-letter office, is uncertain of what to make of the revelation.

Still from Universe 25 (2025)

WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE APOCRYPHA: Melkonian draws deeply from the creative veins tapped by , , and —and so has devised an appropriately odd-and-arty outing.

COMMENTS: Richard Melkonian tells his story his way. If this means using an epistolary structure, with post office banter interrupting the flow, so be it. If this means slapping in a esque dream sequence, so be it. And if this means a West End-style musical duet between an angel and a tragic actress, so be it. While his inspirations are apparent throughout Universe 25, the film is his own, and features a singular sound and visual design. Presuming Melkonian—who serves as writer, director, and composer here—further develops his style, he has the advantage that his last name already reads as an adjective.

Beginning with some gritty back alleys in a gritty style, Universe 25 appears to concern a young postman by the name of Jacob. After a hard morning’s deliveries, his supervisor tasks him with sifting through some undeliverables. Find out if a letter or parcel might, perhaps, have its destination determined despite the “lost post” designation, and if not, affix the “Bump It” sticker after two weeks, and… bump it. Jacob is in no mood for this drudgery, and he slides the dead letters onto the floor. One oddly-addressed item catches his eye, however, and he finds himself reading the handwritten observations of a future super intelligence (a “Level Three” one), who has recently appeared in our time—emerging in a neon green glow upon a canal bridge—to await instructions from his creator. These turned out to be: find the saint; find the lamb; and compose a scroll to account for his efforts.

Mott, the super intelligence, manifests as a quietly genial human. He hears people’s prayers, and offers guidance to those who accept his divine origins. His powers work on a traumatized mother unable to acknowledge her son has gone (grown up or passed away in infancy, it is unclear). They do not work in the case of the man he identifies as the saint. This angel—or future intelligence—follows the saint, from his choreography studio, to the saint’s home in Romania, before returning home after a cryptic sequence involving Mott’s master, a lamb, and a dilapidated church.

This is all the stuff of high-religious meditation, depicted in unsightly earth form. Universe 25‘s sound alternately disorients and grounds the listener, while the nigh-ubiquitous shadows tend to black out the eyes of the performers. But we’re never locked into a trying, portentous ordeal: at the drop of a hat, we zip back to Jacob as he’s interrupted by co-workers. In the end, Mott’s fate is as unexplained as his actual origins: is he an angel? an intelligence? a wing-nut? Would all this be explained if Jacob just answered the desk phone? And while we’re asking questions, just who are this pair of Euro-hipsters who keep popping up?

Like Heaven, the future, and the lives of others: we will never know.