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APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: SCARLET WARNING 666 (1974)

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AKA It Happened One Weekend; It Happened on Sunday; Scarlet Love; Love Is Deep Inside; Rockey’s Style (?); Scarlet Love 666

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Beware

 

DIRECTED BY: Palmer Rockey

FEATURING: Palmer Rockey

PLOT: A detective, and his twin, investigate the murder of their sister at the hands of a money-worshiping cult.

Still from Scarlet Warning 666 (1974)

 

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: The eccentric Palmer Rockey exhibits a complete failure to communicate his intentions with the baffling Scarlet Warning 666. Is it a legitimate attempt at an occult thriller, an arty anthem of nonconformity, an avant-garde meta-movie spoof, or just an excuse to cast himself in awkward sex scenes with buxom women? You’ll have no idea. File it with After Last Season as one of those mysterious objects you can’t believe actually exists.

COMMENTS: Bruce (the good twin) is walking in the park, as he often does when investigating the death of his sister Jackie. Spread out on a yellow napkin, he discovers flowers and feathers covered in sticky stage blood. A clue? But what about the swinging knife? The pirate hat perched on the coffin? The totemic feathered rattle? The spinning plastic skull lit by a flashlight? The belly dancer? The silent topless woman with big “pineapples”? All clues?

No, the movie does not have a clue. This impenetrable mystery is the magnum opus of one Palmer Rockey. Rockey was not an idiot. He was an army veteran and, surprisingly, he had a Ph.D. and had translated theology books into German. He was also a huckster, a womanizer, and some kind of sui generis madman. The opening of the film brags that Rockey plays 54 different roles—7 in front of the camera, and 47 behind it—but on screen, there are only 2 or 3 (it is often near-impossible to distinguish which character he is portraying). The film did, apparently, did go under 7 different titles, however. After its disastrous reception after its four-walled debut, a devastated but defiant Rockey further tinkered with his masterpiece for two decades, adding narration and reshooting scenes (removing his ex-wife Cookie, the former female lead, whenever possible). He incorporates footage from a student film he shot in the 50s, which is positioned as a nightmare/flashback and has nothing whatsoever to do with the later scenes. Knowing that Rockey added exposition throughout the years in an attempt to make the plot more comprehensible makes you wonder how puzzling the original must have been. His later narration is particularly bizarre, as he engages in dialogue with a falsetto version of himself discussing the movie’s genius, but also disparaging his own actors and deflecting criticism by claiming that the entire movie is a satire of some kind.

If you like bad acting backed by bad singing (also courtesy of Rockey, naturally), mismatched film stocks, continuity errors, characters who appear without being introduced, randomly edited footage, and jarring sound edits, have I got the movie for you! Despite the added exposition, I doubt the film’s plot can be reconstructed even by the most dedicated scholars. There is an artistic intent here—Rockey depicts himself as a little guy, a nonconformist fighting an evil, greedy cabal—but it’s essentially undecipherable. We will simply note that it all ends on a bare stage with blue walls and a blue floor, which is either the site of a cult ritual or a symbolic psychodrama. A shirtless Rockey poses in front of spinning yellow wheel of justice while impassive bikini-clad women stand around in the background, and later spin in a circle dance. It segues into some kind of trial, followed by an action sequence of some variety with wrestling, gunplay, and a surprise twist reveal. All acted out in front of an idol of a plywood eagle inscribed in magic marker with a dollar sign. And as the credits roll, the audience leaves none the wiser as to what just went on.

Scarlet Warning 666 (or whatever name the movie was known by) was lost for years, whispered about by and a few lucky others who caught it at its Dallas premiere. The flame was kept burning by obscure record collectors, who treasured Rockey’s supremely awful lounge-rockabilly soundtrack, and wondered in vain about the movie that had inspired such a bizarre artifact. Grindhouse Releasing actually tracked down a copy of the current version of the film and, in 2026, finally put out a Blu-ray for the first time, so everyone could see this astounding monument to one man’s misplaced egotism. The release is filled with interviews, including fans Stang and Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra, alongside contemporaneous witnesses like Rockey’s ex-wife Cookie and actor Ron DeSilva. But the portrait that emerges of the mysterious Rockey remains as inexplicable as Scarlet Warning 666‘s occult plot. The film, and the man, remain oddities of the weirdest stripe.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…a study of storytelling madness that will either test the patience of even the most adventurous cult film explorer or make them dizzy with delight…  if one can make it past the first ten minutes of the film, there’s a chance for some fun to be had, with the movie gradually becoming an alt-universe ‘Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me’ as Rockey attempts to mix vanity, inscrutability, and desperation into a single offering of cinematic puzzling.”–Brian Orndoff, Blu-ray.com (Blu-ray)

I think this movie is weirder than average
I think this movie is better than average

Palmer Rockey's Scarlet Warning 666

Palmer Rockey's Scarlet Warning 666

  • Move over, Ed Wood and Tommy Wiseau. Stupefying, incomprehensible, and utterly insane, SCARLET WARNING 666 goes beyond THE ROOM and PLAN 9.

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CAPSULE: KRYPTIC (2024)

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Kryptic is currently available on VOD for purchase or rental.

DIRECTED BY: Kourtney Roy

FEATURING: Chloe Pirrie, Jeff Gladstone

PLOT: Cryptozoology fan Kay catches a glimpse of a monster in the Canadian woods, sparking an identity crisis.

Still from kryptic (2024)

COMMENTS: I think it’s no real mystery why Kryptic fails. It’s not the fault of lead Chloe Pirrie, cinematographer David Bird, or anyone on the visual effects team. The movie is competently shot and acted; it’s a professionally assembled low-to-mid-budget genre film. There is a memorable recurring scene of, shall we say, crytpid gooeyness, and a couple of cool quick-flash shots suggesting hallucinations or buried realities: a face that suddenly takes on a demonic sheen; hands whose fingers, on second glance, appear inhumanly long. All this suggests talent on hand. And the issue isn’t really that the movie is too weird, confusing, or inconclusive, although Kryptic has more than enough strangeness to frustrate the mainstream viewer. But when it works, it works, despite the ellipticality.  No, the problem clearly lies with the screenplay.

The first thirty minutes or so, which set up the premise, are perfectly fine. Kay catches the merest glimpse of a cryptid in the woods while on an (all-female) tour hosted by a Jon Lovitz impersonator; this results in near-total amnesia. While putting together the pieces of her life from clues lying around her unfamiliar car and home, she discovers a news story about a woman named Barb Valentine, a cryptozoologist who recently disappeared—and who looks exactly like Kay. It’s a promisingly mysterious beginning, even if there is nothing especially eye-catching (the second-long encounter with the creature is even less illuminating than the Patterson-Gimlin film).

The last twenty minutes or so are also not really the problem. Some will complain that the final events explain too little, but there is at least a legitimately ian flavor to the proceedings. Most importantly, while the events of the finale are still confusing, they are at least confusing in an interesting way.

No, the problem with Kryptic is clearly its long, meandering second act. Kay follows “clues” which lead her from one mildly quirky but scarcely interesting character (nearly all of them women) to another: a hotel owner, a fellow cryptid enthusiast, a magician in a bar, a trailer park family. None of these encounters make much of an impression or provide much of a clue as to where the story is eventually heading. The only meaningful developments in the entire section occur in our heroine’s head. She starts increasingly pretending to be Barb rather than Kay—or maybe she thinks she is becoming Barb? Meanwhile, she has a lot of flashbacks (or maybe flashforwards) to the aforementioned sticky fantasy involving the cryptid, usually sparked by some observation of sex. Kryptic is not up to the challenge it sets itself of illustrating that interior character arc. The encounters that make up the bulk of the movie act are inevitably dry conversations that could be fast-forwarded through without losing much of value. It seems that the script just did not have enough decent ideas for a full 90 minutes; and yet, the movie runs 102 minutes, and feels even longer. This suggests some basic advice for new directors: when padding a film, add only the minimum amount of scenes necessary to reach feature length.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…pure high strangeness… You can’t always be in the mood for a semen-covered, super weird, mind-melter but it’s par for the course with a kooky cryptid tale.”–Johnathan Deehan, Nightmare on Film Street (festival screening)

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CAPSULE: JACKER 2: DESCENT TO HELL (1996)

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DIRECTED BY: Barry Gaines

FEATURING: Phil Herman, Barry Gaines, Ben Stanski

PLOT: After being thrown off a cliff Mike, the carjacker-cum-serial killer from Jacker, becomes an invulnerable supernatural entity.

Still from Jacker 2: Descent Into Hell

COMMENTS: Where to start with Jacker 2? Well, maybe start with Jacker, the senseless story of a serial-killing carjacker who likes to put blood in his Wheaties and who easily outwits some of the stupidest cops in the world, who can’t figure out he killed his girlfriend because they never think to check the handwriting on her suicide note and can’t figure out he killed the investigating detective’s sister despite his basically threatening to do so in front of a group of police witnesses. It features dingy VHS camcorder videography often lit by streetlights, some less-than-thrilling taking-an-elevator-to-your-apartment scenes, lobotomized acting, sound that ranges from inconsistent to inaudible, and a reasonable amount of violence, but almost no gore or special effects. (To be fair, the script for Jacker was written in a reported four days.)

Jacker 2 picks up exactly where Jacker left off, and most of Jacker‘s characters—including the dead ones—show up again. This fact might give you some reason to watch Jacker, but the main reason to watch Jacker is because it makes Jacker 2 look so much better by comparison. Although the sequel’s story is even more nonsensical—a positive, since the whackadoodle plot is the only real reason to watch this—everything else is much improved. There are a greater variety of creative camera shots, more effective attempts at deliberate comedy, sleazier sex scenes, goofier supporting characters, better (though still not good) sound, occasional lighting for scenes, more non-sequiturs, a bigger ketchup budget, and a trip to Hell (which, as you might have suspected, is actually a basement in New Jersey)—complete with demonic costumes that might have looked silly except for the fact that you can barely make them out through the heavy yellow filter and solarization haze. The editing is actually impressive, given the low quality of the raw footage they had to work with. While Jacker 2 likely would have earned a “Beware” rating if I had seen it first, in contrast to Jacker, it’s a near masterpiece—the Citizen Kane of New Jersey-shot microbudget invulnerable supernatural carjacker flicks.

Of course, it’s a rough ride for the average viewer accustomed to movies with more polish, but Jacker 2 is—if not actually good—at least memorable. The 90s no-budget shot-on-video aesthetic is a real one (heck, Harmony Korine even deliberately aped it). In fact, with all of its technical deficiencies, the biggest complaint against the film is that, at 105 minutes, it’s way too long. Trim out a few of the carjackings that went nowhere, and it would almost be a strong little indie.

Falcon Video was (is?) a New Jersey-based team of zero-budget horror film makers who originally sold most of their movies through mail order. They take turns directing, writing and producing films, but Phil Herman (who stars as Mike the Jacker, wrote both films, and directed the first one) is the central figure. They’re a fascinating collective: a group of friends who break out the camcorder and make feature films in their spare time while holding down day jobs. We should all be so lucky. There are lots of references to Falcon Video and other FV films spread throughout Jacker and Jacker 2, including a running joke that whenever someone’s TV is on, there’s an FV production onscreen.

Semi-star alert: Marilyn Ghigliotti had a major role a few years earlier in cult classic Clerks (she played Dante’s girlfriend, Veronica), but accepts a much smaller role here; talk about climbing down the ladder! (Don’t worry, Marilyn rebounded and is doing just fine today, having accumulated 42 IMDb credits and counting.)

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…it doesn’t just repeat the earlier movie’s formula but adds horror and the supernatural to the mix in a way that comes across as properly creepy, and it’s clear to see the filmmakers made the most out of what little they had. And the result … may not be a masterpiece, objectively speaking, but if you’re into shot-on-video movies from the era, there’s a good chance you might like this one.”–Michael Haberfelner, (Re)search My Trash

Jacker / Jacker 2: Descent to Hell [Blu-ray]

Jacker / Jacker 2: Descent to Hell [Blu-ray]
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APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: MARKETA LAZAROVÁ (1967)

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DIRECTED BY: Frantisek Vlácil

FEATURING: Frantisek Velecký, Magda Vásáryová, Ivan Palúch, Josef Kemr, Michal Kozuch, Pavla Polaskova

PLOT: In the early Middle Ages, a pair of brothers rob a caravan under protection of the King, setting off a chain of events that eventually leads to the kidnapping of Marketa, a virgin pledged to the convent.

Still from Marketa Lazarova (1967)

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: Dreamy pagan sequences adorn a stylized and hallucinatory landscape in Vlácil’s stark medieval epic.

COMMENTS: Although Marketa Lazarová is almost universally praised, everyone remarks on its confusing narrative. The film, which begins with a highway robbery and kidnapping, starts off with a lack of context, and the remainder of the story is fragmented, peppered with abrupt changes of scene, and with dreams, visions, and flashbacks which are sometimes impressionistic, sometimes indistinguishable from reality. The plot elements are comprehensible—a petty noble goes too far and angers the king, a virtuous maiden is snatched from her home—-but the main problem is keeping track of who is who, and where their loyalties lie. If you are prepared for confusion, you can soldier through it and the parties should sort themselves out within an hour or so. But if you would like some guidance, I’ll start this review with a short overview of the major players to get you oriented.

Despite providing the film’s title, Marketa Lazarová herself is not a prominent character until the film’s second half. The story atually centers on her eventual abductor, Mikoláš, a lanky and handsome man in a tight beard. Mikoláš’ brother and partner in banditry, Adam, is easily identified because he has only one arm (although watch out for flashbacks where he has two). Although they behave like highwaymen, Mikoláš and Adam are pseudo-nobles, the sons of Kozlík, a bald and bearded feudal yeoman who rules the walled town of Roháček. Long-haired temptress Alexandra, a brunette contrast to Marketa’s blond innocence, is their sister. In the first chapter the brothers kidnap Kristián, a German youth of noble blood, intending to ransom him. Meanwhile, Lord Lazar rules Obořiště, Roháček’s rival village; he is Marketa’s doting father. Mikoláš spares Lazar after catching him scavenging the wreckage of the caravan the Kozlík clan intends to loot, but later regrets his mercy when Lazar refuses to provide assistance against the king. In revenge, Mikoláš kidnaps the virginal Marketa, whom the (relatively) pious Lazar has pledged to the nunnery. The relentless Captain “Beer,” the king’s military representative in the region, is easily distinguished by his bushy mustache. These are the major players; many minor characters enter and leave, but if you can keep these straight, you should be able to navigate the main thrust of the tale—though details are often elusive.

The narrative confusion matters less because the film is so beautiful. The black and white vistas show off the wintry Bohemian countryside, bare interiors where scar-faced men in furs and chainmail Continue reading APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: MARKETA LAZAROVÁ (1967) →

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366 UNDERGROUND: EMESIS BLUE (2023)

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DIRECTED BY: Chad Payne

FEATURING: Voces of “Jazzyjoeyjr,” Chad Payne

PLOT: A soldier discovers a conspiracy involving respawning and a valium-esque drug that leads him to question the nature of his reality as he ventures through a series of violent encounters.

Still from Emesis Blue (2023)

COMMENTS: Several months back, we featured a Saturday Short based on characters from the combat-oriented “Team Fortress 2” video game universe. In 2012, the Team Fortress released a program called Source Filmmaker (SFM) that allowed users to create animations using game assets (characters, objects, environments, animations, maps, sound clips, physics rules) from their library, with the ability to adjust angles and lighting or add their own soundtracks. The gaming community responded by creating scads of short videos, usually absurd, featuring game characters like Heavy (a type) or the masked Spy turning invisible, going on missions to retrieve baby toys, or partying with Thomas the Tank engine. It was only a matter of time until someone sat down with the now decades-old (and reportedly clunky-to-use) software to grind out a feature-length film. What no one expected was that this trailblazing work would be a deeply weird psychological thriller—and passable entertainment for people (like your present reviewer) with no firsthand knowledge of the game.

Non-TMF2 players can orient themselves with this first-person-shooter-as-horror-movie-film-noir world through knowledge of the basic motifs of video games. We deduce that “Team Fortress” is played in combat between two teams, and that characters respawn when they die. Respawning is, in fact, a major plot point. The movie’s gaming-derived premise—what if the real world military-industrial complex developed a technology that could literally “respawn” soldiers on the battlefield?—suggests a truly hellish dystopia. After some introductory investigatory plot suggesting a wide-ranging conspiracy, Emesis Blue throws its main characters—the constantly and incongruously helmeted “Soldier” and the dour Teutonic “Medic”—through a dungeon crawl where they enter one infernal room after another to fight one infernal enemy after another, spiked with revelations about an elaborate ongoing plot involving, among other things, the kidnapping of a politician who may be partially responsible for the flawed respawning technology. The numerous fight scenes play quite well; this is, after all, a combat game. The characters lack expressiveness, but context can do a surprising job of turning an essentially blank expression into a look of uncomprehending fear. The video’s look is unceasingly dark, almost all shadowy interiors, with most of the outdoor scenes taking place during nocturnal downpours. On top of the sequential antagonists and masked torturers (led, perhaps, by a mysterious boss in a plague mask), there are zombies and other monsters, a briefcase MacGuffin (that kind of goes nowhere), and references to ‘s M and to The Shining, among other films. The unceasingly strange events all seem to result either from respawn errors, hallucinations caused by the title drug, or possibly a combination of the twain.

I understand that there are multiple Easter eggs to enjoy if your familiar with the Team Fortress and its characters. As for me, I was sometimes confused as to who was who, incorrectly assuming, for example, that “Spy” was a reskinned doppelganger of “Medic.” But Emesis Blue is by all accounts a non-canonical Team Fortress movie occurring in an independent alternate reality, and I am proof that it can be viewed and (reasonably) well understood by people with no background in the game (per Reddit, those thoroughly familiar with Fortress can be equally baffled by Emesis Blue‘s plot). The clues to unraveling Emesis‘ riddles, if they exist, are to be found within the story itself.

Obviously, this project was made with a particular audience in mind, and most of them eat it up. There are dozens of r/tf2 threads discussing the film (and fan theories as to what the hell the plot is all about), as well as an explanatory video on YouTube that’s longer than the feature itself. But to be honest, Emesis Blue is not that great as a movie. It’s dreary and repetitive, which can be blamed on the limited palette afforded by the SFM technology. Psychological thriller is perhaps too ambitious a genre to tackle in director Chad Payne’s first time out; the balance between ambiguity and explanation lists too far in the former hemisphere, and too many of the story’s rabbit holes end in cul-de-sacs. But what is unquestionably great about Emesis Blue is that it’s a movie at all: that’s right, it’s an honest-to-God, fully-plotted feature film made in video game editing software, and it’s more entertaining than a handful of movies released this year by major studios. Neither Red nor Blue may triumph in this phantasmagorical game of Capture the Flag, but Payne amasses a virtual shelf full of achievements.

Emesis Blue can be watched for free on YouTube.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“If you want a film that relishes in not just mystery but the macabre and horror of things you can’t or shouldn’t even begin to comprehend, there is one I can recommend… it gives off a ghastly mood, and you are drawn in by its clever use of cinematography and cryptic shots that can foreshadow or enhance the theme, and the weird, almost out-of-nowhere scenes that only raise more questions.”–Rasec Ventura, The Gothic Times (Newspaper of New Jersey City University) (contemporaneous)

(This movie was nominated for review by “anonymous,” who suggested it was a “Weird one to suggest…” Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)