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CAPSULE: CRUMB CATCHER (2023)

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Crumb Catcher is available for VOD purchase or rental.

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DIRECTED BY: Chris Skotchdopole

FEATURING: Rigo Garay, Ella Rae Peck, John Speredakos, Lorraine Farris

PLOT: Two newlyweds are tracked down by a gregarious waiter who has an unlikely business opportunity to pitch.

Still from Crumb Catcher (2023)

COMMENTS: Skotchdopole’s directorial debut features the movie prop I’d most like to own. That’s not only because it has a sleek design, precision-engineered components, and is a fetching shade of cadmium red; no, not just that. It’s also the absurd centerpiece of a fun little home invasion thriller—one in which the home in question doesn’t even belong to the victims, and for which the “invasion” is a troublingly enthusiastic sales pitch. Crumb Catcher, like the titular invention, is a strangely compelling endeavor, devised with unsettling earnestness.

Shane and Leah have just married, and it quickly becomes clear that their shaky union is grounded upon some rocky relations beforehand. Shane is a promising new author of a collection of short stories; Leah works for a publishing house, and was instrumental in signing him. Despite the post-wedding awkwardness and reception headaches, its pretty clear they want to make a go of things. But among Shane’s weaknesses, drinking looms large, and during a blackout drunk wedding night he makes a big mistake. Enter John, the waiter. An eager beaver if ever there were one: eager to chat, eager to please, and eager to bring his long-simmering dream to life.

It is best to get it out of the way that much of Crumb Catcher is by-the-numbers, but the piece is painted so well that it’s still quite the beaut. (Which is more than might be said for some of the art festooning the walls of the newlywed’s remote hideaway.) This has much to do with the performances. Ella Rae Peck and Rigo Garay have a fractured chemistry, as their characters are both trying to feel the other out, while also working through their own complications. John Speredakos, as John the waiter, always steals the show—and I am happy to let him do so. When his character contrives to crash the couple’s vacation, his earnestness is tinged by deranged menace (morphing later to deranged menace tinged by earnestness). Lorraine Farris, who plays Rose—John’s wife and sales partner—rides her own razor line between dominance and desperation.

Crumb Catcher also succeeds from the production standpoint. Skotchdopole’s team is purposeful, but playful, with its lighting and camerawork. The film’s major set-piece—John and Rose’s presentation of the exciting new restaurant dining experience—is disorienting, claustrophobic, and a bit gigglesome. Shane and Leah’s harrowing escape attempt (driving to Kingston, NY, of all places) perfectly captures the drunk driving experience. A parting shot of Rose bathed in the red rear light of the couple’s vintage sedan is a moment of dark beauty. Throughout the production flourishes all the characters oscillate around their set axes, making for a vibrant inter-character dynamic to match the vibrant on-screen look.

Yessir, ma’am, child: you can tell I’m very excited. And you, too, should be excited as well: Crumb Catcher is an wickedly wonderful entertainment opportunity.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“[T]he best – and most terrifying – thing about the movie is how true even the most absurdist parts of it are… Two outings of Funny Games didn’t teach us not to open the door to seemingly harmless looking strangers, but hey, maybe this beautifully shot and wonderfully weird pitch session from hell will?” — Olga Artemyeva, Screen Anarchy (contemporaneous)

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FANTASIA 2024: APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: CUCKOO (2024)

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DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: Hunter Schafer, Dan Stevens, , Mila Lieu

PLOT: Her family’s relocation to an alpine resort induces Gretchen to boredom—then terror—as strange sights and sounds crescendo in the woods.

Still from Cuckoo (2024)

WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE APOCRYPHA: “Well, that’s definitely an Apocrypha candidate, if I may say so!” — Nina Martin, festival-attendee and film scholar.

COMMENTS: Tilman Singer, mein guter Herr, it has been too long. Six years, in fact, since I had the pleasure of catching his feature debut Luz at Fantasia. For Cuckoo, Singer was upgraded to the big auditorium, and the film played for an enthusiastic crowd, without an empty seat in the house. His sophomore effort is an exciting work, but one with something uncomfortable hanging over it.

There is discomfort in the story, naturally. Young Gretchen (an amazing Hunter Schafer) places the viewer squarely in her corner: late-teenage years are bad enough without having to move to some 1970s alpine resort throw-back with your architect father, his new wife, and a new half-sister. Worse still, the hotel owner falls squarely (and immediately) into that creepy-civility found so often in the genre, shticking from the get-go with his archaic-Euro-hipster duds and closely cropped beard. Herr Koenig (Dan Stevens) hits all the right notes for a man that is obviously up to something sinister, but whose words and tone are taken at face value by easily-impressed adults.

This sinister is hinted at in the opening scene, even before the resort, and has much to do with sound. Sound was clearly important in Luz, and here Singer goes all-out with the foley design, bringing door slams into sharp prominence from silence, alternating music-slathered muffles in headphones with the stripped acoustics of the surroundings, and most impressively, accompanying the high shriek of the resort’s woodland entities with a deadly thump of bass, disorienting the listener to the point where time itself skips and loops. As a delightful bonus, Luz veteran Jan Bluthardt plays a detective in Cuckoo: the only character who knows what is going on who is not also a part of the conspiracy.

The “uncomfortable thing” must be addressed, though. As Cuckoo is a much larger production than Luz, it involved compromises with its financial backers. The film’s first half feels like untethered Singer, as disorientation and disquieting mystery are stacked high and unwieldy. (Delightfully so, I should clarify.) The second half, for better or worse, feels like an exercise in tying things together in something of a sensible manner. Various parties I’ve conferred with regret this anchoring, and I largely concede their point: as a general rule, I want a filmmaker to go as full-tilt as their imagination and ability can take them. But I consider Cuckoo‘s conclusion more than capable, and sufficiently saturated with Singer’s sorcery. Gretchen’s alpine ordeal is alive with the sound of mayhem.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…it’s Stevens, who’s often strongest when he turns weird, who is unforgettable… Between its inventive world building and a final invigorating freak out, the film’s few plot holes are papered over for a deafening ring worth repeating.”–Robert Daniels, RogerEbert.com (festival screening)

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CAPSULE: ALTERED PERCEPTIONS (2023)

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DIRECTED BY: Jorge Ameer

FEATURING: Oran Stainbrook, Matt Fling, Danny Fehsenfeld, Vincent Giovanni, ,

PLOT: Pandemic, violence, and sedition threaten to destroy the United States; a father and son embedded in opposing political organizations are its last hope.

COMMENTS: Like most movies, Altered Perceptions ends with the standard notice, “This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental.” I’m going to go ahead and ignore that. With characters like slimy Senator Ted DeMarcos, bigoted Governor Ron San Diego, and an obvious George Santos look-alike as a spineless henchman (sportingly portrayed by director Jorge Ameer himself), it is clear just which politico goons the filmmaker is referencing. Indeed, the protagonist’s name—Alex Feretti, son of Dr. Feretti, a Whitehouse disease big-wig—echoes a certain Dr. A. Fauci of pandemic fame.

And what a pandemic! Sure, Covid was bad enough, but it seems that the vaccines and boosters for it trigger a nasty mental deterioration coupled with homi- and suicidal violence in many who received it, especially blacks and HOMOsexuals (emphasis mimicking DeMarcos’ singular pronunciation). This leads to chaos in the country, which a gallery of secessionist goons take advantage of, ultimately requesting that all Blacks and HOMOsexuals who have received the vaccine voluntarily check in to observation facilities in America’s South and Southwest. And oh yes, it affects the elderly, too (cue not-at-all-President-Biden being called on to step down); and what with the pre-eminent disease guy (aforementioned Doctor F̶a̶u̶c̶i̶ Feretti) being a prominent homosexual, it’s all looking very bad for various put-upon groups.

The paragraph above is ill-wrought, so as to better give you an idea of the narrative flow of Altered Perceptions—and I haven’t yet even touched upon the fully-frontally nude time traveler who is desperate to enlist the help of Alex Feretti, who is not only the son of the nationally known doctor but also the top aide to Senator DeMarcos. These shotgun blasts of social commentary, interspersed with interludes of well-intentioned guesses at what a gay relationship is like, crackle over the course of two hours as we watch society collapse from both macro- and micro-focus. And before I forget, there’s a strange plot from North Korea brewing as well.

Jorge Ameer kept my interest throughout, it is true. But much of that stemmed from the constant crinkling sound I heard as the plot unfurled. The screenwriter is a neuropsychologist, and while axes are ground, its never clear what they ultimately end up swung at. Ameer is obviously earnest, but his technical (and storytelling) proficiency is only a few notches above Tommy Wiseau’s. The acting ranges from C- to B+, with son Feretti scoring the former and father Feretti the latter, rendering their interactions one-sidedly stilted. And while I don’t hold clunky special effects against anyone, others do—and are so warned.

Still, I much prefer a film’s reach to exceed its grasp than vice versa, and while I could reel off any number of further quibbles, I’d feel petty doing so. Ameer takes a stab at making a Big Movie with Big Ideas under the restraints of a low budget. If you will allow the use of a crummy double-metaphor, Altered Perceptions is like a slice of Swiss cheese: there are plenty of holes; but also like a slice of Swiss cheese, it holds together just enough to make it a notable addition in the greater Sandwich of Cinema.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“… this is a glitchy, channel-surfing trawl through recent American history, where the dialogue is stylised and repetitive, the characters dumbed down, and the narrative unbelievable to the point of surrealism. Yet this is part of the point: for here, as in a Neil Breen film, artifice is foregrounded, the medium is the message, and ultimately it is the viewer’s perceptions which are altered, as Ameer – who also plays one of DeMarcos’ aides – infects us all with the maddening irrationality of America’s contemporary culture wars.”–Anton Bitel, Projected Figures (contemporaneous)

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APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: THE PRESIDENT’S ANALYST (1967)

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DIRECTED BY: Theodore J. Flicker

FEATURING: James Coburn, Joan Delaney, Godfrey Cambridge, Severn Darden

PLOT: Dr. Sidney Shaefer is chosen to provide his psychoanalytical services to the president of the United States, making him target number one for sinister agents both foreign and domestic.

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: The President’s Analyst begins as a cute exploration of the 60s craze for psychotherapy; but at an accelerating speed, cute spirals into silly, then into zany, then to madcap, before climaxing in a jaw-dropping finale plucked straight from a giggling paranoiac’s subconscious.

COMMENTS: Psychological analysis is a slow process: trust is built, feelings are explored, and emotions’ roots are teased out over time. The President’s Analyst, on the other hand, is a speedy journey through a pinball plotline, a zany zipping from point A, to B, to C—through the entire alphabet, perhaps, as director Theodore J. Flicker maneuvers an unflappable James Coburn from humble sitcom beginnings all the way through an explosive climax and a joyfully jaded denouement.

To speed along the plot necessities, Flicker amply uses cinema’s age-old time quickener: the montage. He establishes Dr. Sidney Shaefer’s profession before the opening credits wrap up, then intercuts that montage with another laying out the “thriller” angle: shady guy passes off envelope, envelope receiver winds through city streets, then is murdered by Don Masters, sneakily in broad daylight. Don is a CEA agent (not at all to be confused with a CIA agent) in a rush: “I gotta hurry, or I’ll be late for my analyst.” Scenes move along with purpose, often with a 1960s “ahhh-AHHHH-ahhh” woman’s chanting musical cue in moments of peril (and there are many moments of peril), with plenty of smoooooth lounge-style synth work.

Events escalate badly for Dr. Shaefer. Against the wishes of the FBR chief (not at all to be confused with the FBI chief, particularly as this man’s organization is staffed entirely by somber men who stand below five-foot-tall), Shaefer has been groomed and selected to serve the president. This leads our hero to acquire too much knowledge, and hostile forces stack up quickly to either kill or kidnap him: the Russians (through the machinations of friendly super-spy Kropotkin, friend of Don Masters), the Chinese, the Libyans, the Cubans, the British—and even, we find, the Canadian Secret Service. The FBR (who, along with the CEA, were not consulted for this film) are after Shaefer as well, sending two of their top short men.

The second half of The President’s Analyst is “Spy v. Spy” writ large, but with character-building moments breaking into the many montages. The two FBR agents are distinct, established in a delightful little scene in a New Jersey suburb, one admonishing the boy of the house about racist language. Don’s and Kropotkin’s friendship is touching, as two long-career spies working from opposite sides of the Cold War divide. And James Coburn is a combination of James Bond and Dr. Hartley from the “Bob Newhart Show,” thinking on his feet (at one point he stumbles onto a tour bus and ends up dressed as a hippie-band gong maestro), both for survival and analysis.

Looming in the background is a most unlikely nemesis: bigger than any petty foreign agency, bigger than the KGB, bigger, even, it seems, than the US government. This reveal, with its concurrent implications of technological grandeur and the power to enslave humanity, forced my long dropped jaw to remain open until the finish.  Casino Royale, eat your heart out; “The Prisoner,” eat your heart out—The President’s Analyst is a prescient, madcap, disturbing, hilarious, thrilling adventure which fuses Cold War paranoia with ’60s-silly cinematic sensibilities.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…a psychedelic mega-satire with sado-burlesque overtones… a full-scale, mind-bending comic nightmare.”–Giles M. Fowler, Kansas City Star (contemporaneous)

(This movie was nominated for review by Mel Arkey, who called it “an all time fave of mine and most definitively weird.” Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)

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CAPSULE: SUSPECT ZERO (2004)

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DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: , Ben Kingsley, Carrie-Anne Moss

PLOT: A mysterious vigilante cursed with supernatural visions singles out disgraced FBI agent Tom Mackelway as the man to apprehend a prolific serial killer.

Still from "Suspect Zero" (2004)

COMMENTS: There’s a certain level of hubris, even for a cinematic interpretation of the FBI, in naming a secret program “Project Icarus.” Training agents in the gift of second sight to allow them to pursue elusive murderers, “Project Icarus” suggests unavoidable doom for the participants. All those involved end up dead or insane, except for one—who’s still kind of nuts. Ben Kingsley provides a stellar performance as Ben O’Ryan, the kind-of-nuts agent cursed with the sight; Aaron Eckhart provides a middling performance as Tom Mackelway, a migraine-prone lawman; and Carrie-Anne Moss is reduced to just kicking around as, perhaps, the audience’s conduit into the action. With the man behind Begotten and Shadow of the Vampire orchestrating what should be a hazy, unsettling outing in the world of serial killers, one has to wonder went gone wrong, and if hubris had anything to do with that.

Merhige has somehow managed to direct a ho-hum procedural here, which is a real pity. The stakes seem to be high—there are hundreds of dead and missing people, most of them children, and the killer(s) evade justice—but Eckhart’s FBI man just seems kind of addled and pissed off (explained at least in part by the fact that the poor guy suffers from constant headaches). There’s a bit of ambiguity, I suppose, vis-à-vis O’Ryan: no one that calm and smiling could possibly be an unalloyed goodie, right? Eh, maybe. Or not. Whenever Kingsley wasn’t on screen, it was a bit difficult to care.

Looking closely, one can see the missed opportunities here. Merhige unfortunately keeps his keen sense of visual on the stylistic periphery. The dark art of “Remote Viewing,” the technical term for the paranormal power of perception, is a treat to view, with visions of the crimes, and those involved, coming through the viewer’s pupil in the form of a sepia-’90s camcorder hybrid. There are also singularly creepy charcoal renderings, and the occasional shot of what I’ll call as the Wandering Merhige Eye (those familiar with Begotten may guess it’s an extreme close-up of a troubled, scanning eyeball).

My best guess is that main(ish)-stream filmmaking is beyond the reach of certain auteurs who are steeped in their own vision. (John Paisz is another of these, albeit in a manner quite different from Merhige.) Begotten is one of the most original films of the second half of the 20th century. It is something extreme, and different from just about any feature film. Shadow of the Vampire similarly explores mythical (and ocular) themes through a comedy-horror lens. Unfortunately, Suspect Zero is little more than wasted potential across the board. That’s not to say it isn’t “good enough,” but it is merely good enough—when it could have been a tantalizing vision of humanity’s darkest corners.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…perhaps there is another, more bizarre and involved explanation, and the killer is either hidden in plain view among the major characters or is never seen at all until the climax. I am not spoiling any secrets, but simply applying logic to plot that offers zero sum as well as zero suspects…. Merhige is a gifted director with a good visual sense and a way of creating tension where it should not exist. But Suspect Zero is too devised and elaborate to really engage us.” — Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times (contemporaneous)

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