ISSUE #31
BEAM FROM THE BOOTH | GRAND RAPIDS FILM SOCIETY
[EDITED BY: GRIFFIN SHERIDAN]
Hello and welcome back to an all-new installment of BEAM FROM THE BOOTH brought to you by GRAND RAPIDS FILM SOCIETY!
Last week, we hosted two events focused on independent filmmakers and local artists. We were so truly blown away by the turnout and energy you all brought to both events. Our OPEN PROJECTOR NIGHT: HALLOWEEN EDITION was maybe the best OPN event we have ever had the privilege of putting on. The room was electric as we got to share some of the best horror shorts MI filmmakers have to offer. Thank you to all who submitted, and congratulations to the winners of our ‘audience vote’ for best in show: Hannah Scout (First Place, Gorge), Griffin Pettyes (Second Place, Blind), and Arie Antonakis (Third Place, Riccar500).
Then, the following night found us leading our very first FILM SOCIETY PITCH NIGHT, an event we’ve created with the sole purpose of bringing local talent together in the hopes of sparking collaboration. A huge thank you to Erik Howard for hosting the ceremonies and to all the individuals who pitched their passion projects to a room of eager filmmakers. Grand Rapids Film Society was founded to bring together local communities over a shared love for the cinematic arts. While we love bringing our West MI film fans together, we have long desired to also do all we can to help West MI filmmakers as well. The Pitch Night event is certainly the most we have been able to offer filmmakers in our one year of existence, and it was extremely gratifying to play a role in something that felt truly collaborative and beneficial to the artists in our community. Thank you, thank you, thank you to all who participated! If you missed it, don’t worry — we’ll be hosting more PITCH NIGHTS (and ROUNDTABLES) in the very near future.
Now that we are just one week away from Halloween, we thought we would celebrate by making this week’s newsletter a special DOUBLE-SIZED HORROR-THEMED issue! Read on for horror-centric recommendations, interviews, and more...
GRFS ON HORROR
NICHOLAS HARTMAN:
To me, horror extends beyond cinema. However, cinema is what introduced me to a life of terror — whether it was when my father introduced me to the ‘Universal Monster’ films or when I first saw Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974).
To pinpoint my favorite horror movie is quite difficult, though, because it changes daily due to my mood. So instead of talking about my favorite horror flick, I’d rather discuss horror as a whole. Like I said, horror extends beyond cinema, and it’s become part of my daily life. Just because the film comes to end doesn’t mean the horrors around me will.
I find horror entwined not only in film but in music, comics, literature, painting, and even in nature. If I’m not banging my head to the masters of gore, Cannibal Corpse, I’m reading H.P. Lovecraft in a dark candlelit room with absinthe in hand. If I’m not reading horrific tales, I’m painting feelings of despair. If I’m not creating, I’m wandering through a cold dark forest. If I’m not wandering, I’m watching something chilling. For me, horror is a lifestyle, an obsession.
October will end and most will stop celebrating horror. They’ll go back to watching reruns of The Office and all Halloween decorations will be replaced with holiday décor. Most will remove their gothic attire and replace them with holiday cardigans. Me? No way.
I’ll continue to display all my Halloween decorations year-round, watch reruns of The Munsters, and dress myself in black. Like I said, it’s a lifestyle...and, in my world, horror is celebrated year-round.
CALEB FRANCIS JENKINS:
IT (Wallace, 1990)
I had to sneak over to my neighbors house to watch this movie. I was terrified but my friend comforted me by saying: “Caleb, you’ll be okay because we can turn on Pee Wee’s Playhouse afterwards to wash it all down.” He convinced me. This story reminds me that life is short, and there is nothing safe about life no matter what age you are...your fears stay with you. Side note: I memorized the first scene between Georgie and Pennywise and can still recite it to this day. Ask me sometime; “SS Georgie! Beep, beep!”
Eraserhead (Lynch, 1977)
Not sure if it totally fits the genre but wanted to mention: I don’t know what’s more nerve-racking, a deformed octopus alien-like baby or the first dinner with your partner’s family.
Seconds (Frankenheimer, 1966)
This one caught me by surprise, and I think about it often. It encapsulates what I love most about The Twilight Zone, mixing strange moments that feel otherworldly yet still poke at my fear and paranoia. This one will make you overthink everything about life and what you think you want to change about your life. Consider the relief you might feel after waking up from a nightmare a sincere blessing; don’t count on that same relief here.
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (Lynch 1992)
Another Lynch, no surprise. What’s a treat greater than cherry pie for Twin Peaks fans? A prequel to the TV show that began their obsession. Where do I begin with this masterpiece? Laura’s story is awfully tragic. This film makes me laugh, cry, get lost, wonder what the other side is like. It dives deep into the realm of evil. I think about what we don’t know about what others are going through; that’s super sad. Lynch gives us the inside look at Laura’s life here...and there’s a shit ton of Garmonbozia.
MATT EVERITT:
My favorite type of horror movies are the ones that introduce us to a few normal people before shit goes horribly wrong with some gruesome entity that’s going to kill most of them. Bonus points if they don’t explain much about the ‘how’ or ‘why’ of the entity (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is the rare exception where the backstory doesn’t ruin the horror). There’s horror films that have gotten a lot of respect in the ~*cInEpHiLe*~ community (The Shining, Get Out, The Thing), but the films that still get me on edge are films like The Strangers (2008), Rob Zombie’s Halloween (2007), and my all-time #1 pick — The Descent (Marshall, 2005).
There are so many things going for it (the script, performances, special effects, setting), but at the end of the day it’s just plain horrifying watching normal people met with something so beyond their control; the odds are so stacked against them it’s cruel. It’s just plausible enough that it bypasses the part of my brain that says it’s just a movie and burrows deep down into the most primal part of my brain.
DAVID BLAKESLEE:
Since 2009 I’ve been engaged in a self-directed study of cinema history viewed through the curative lens of the Criterion Collection, a boutique label that’s earned much acclaim over the years as the preeminent distributor of important classic and contemporary films in home media (whether that’s on Laserdisc, DVD, Blu-ray or 4K UHD formats). My “Criterion Reflections” project started as a blog and eventually turned into a podcast that continues to this day. The scheme is that I’m watching all the films published by Criterion in the chronological order in which they were originally released.
For this week’s horror-themed edition of BEAM FROM THE BOOTH, I’m editing brief snippets from reviews I’ve written over the years for some of my favorite films that fit into that genre along with links to the full original post for anyone who wants to go back and read the whole thing (Note: many of the reviews once featured embedded video clips that have long since been removed by YouTube, which I haven’t taken time to replace since they disappeared).
Häxan (the Swedish word for witchcraft) vividly traces the progression from ancient beliefs that animal spirits, devils, demons, and other malevolent forces were responsible for instigating all sorts of woes and calamities to medieval practices of ascribing illness and misfortune as the work of witches and sorcerers. The film’s highly entertaining and shocking middle section uses a series of vignettes to illustrate tactics of the Inquisition and portrays in lurid detail the obscene, voluptuous rituals that witches supposedly indulged in. Director Benjamin Christensen does us the favor of showing us just what it must have looked like for anyone peering in from the safe cover of darkness to observe the dreadful Witch's Sabbath. After making a highly memorable foray into some grotesquely amusing and dark corners of our cultural past, the lasting message of the film goes well beyond exploitation of its sensational subject matter to create a compassionate and progressive proto-feminist argument that holds relevance today. Christensen develops a thesis that the psychological problem and condition that was (in his time) commonly diagnosed as “hysteria” was really just another label for what was considered “witchcraft” centuries earlier. Fascinating parallels are drawn between the behavior of contemporary women and women of the past who were each subject to various forms of repression and domination by men who either could not or would not respect their dignity and personhood. Häxan is a film about human rights and the need to question the assumptions of superstitions and patriarchal religions that seek to suppress women's voices in particular.
Directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer, Vampyr is a memorable and haunting example of film art from the early years of ‘talkie’ cinema, weaving exotic locations, psycho-sexual subtext, and meticulous camerawork featuring creepy tracking shots and intermittent use of a bold first-person perspective to give audiences abundant shivers...and reasons to cling tight in the darkness of the theater. As the story unfolds, an accumulating dread sets in, relentlessly building over the course of the film and never alleviated through comic relief or conventional melodramatic subplots. Dreyer also understands the power that grim and unexplained images have to haunt our imaginations. He is not only content to leave loose ends untied, he practically demands that we get comfortable with that approach and forcibly requires us to relinquish our right to have our curiousity satisfied. Vampyr is a masterpiece of low-key disturbance that provides a powerful alternative to campier renditions of the vampire mythos featuring cape-wearing dandies who simply “vant to suck our blood.”
Beneath the surface of its meticulously realized feudal Japanese setting and eerie supernatural atmospherics, Kenji Mizoguchi’s Ugetsu is a film about masculine obsessions with power, pleasure, and status, and the burdens these delusions impose upon their wives, families, and ultimately society as a whole. The story concerns the exploits of two peasant couples who inhabit a small village that happens to sit in the path of marauding armies in a time of civil war. The men aspire to fame and glory seemingly far beyond their grasp, but circumstances work to help them achieve their grandiose dreams. However, sudden success sets them up for fateful encounters with dark, seductive spirits who test their characters in dreadful ways. In Ugetsu, Mizoguchi spoke to his fellow survivors of World War II: those who had approved and enabled the conflict, those who viewed Japan's militaristic and imperial ambitions with skepticism, and those who had not yet come of age but still had to endure its harsh effects. The director's vision embraces the frailty of human nature with a generous tolerance that nevertheless retains the wisdom and nerve to confront it when our weakness begins to wreak havoc on the innocent — challenging us to open our eyes, question our ambitions (and those of our would-be leaders), and recognize that the ghosts that haunt us the most profoundly are those we summon up from our hidden depths.
Fiend Without a Face establishes its claim to fame primarily as a result of the final fifteen minutes of its short 74-minute runtime when the monsters alluded to in the title finally appear before our eyes after taunting us with their budget-stretching "invisibility" over the course of the preceding hour. The setup is not without its amusing moments as we encounter a brush-up between resentful inhabitants of the Canadian deep backwoods and an American military contingent who've helped themselves to a piece of prime real estate from which they conduct top-secret atomic-powered radar surveillance of the dreaded Commies who live just on the other side of the North Pole. All we see initially when the poor citizens of Winthrop, Manitoba meet their demise is the pathetic sight of them clutching at their necks and the backs of their heads as some invisible vampiric force attacks them out of the blue. The only clue we have (besides ominous soundtrack music) is the loud thumping of a heartbeat...and a disgusting slurping sputtering growl that tells us something evil is nearby. As cheap and chintzy and easy-to-laugh-at as the effect is by today's standards, it still delivers a palpable gross-out effect.
For sixty odd minutes, Fiend Without a Face racks up a steady accumulation of classic 50s paranoid tropes: the bland but sturdy straight-arrow leading man, the perky-cute female who alternates between eligible love interest and damsel in distress, the eccentric old scientist whose research leads him to dabble in crackpot-variety forbidden fruit, and the usual collection of law enforcement and medical professionals to lend an air of quasi-seriousness to the silliness that would otherwise undermine the tension. This film, as minor and transitory as it may seem, actually played a significant role in loosening the limits that American and British censors imposed on just how grotesque they'd allow movies to get. It pushed up against the barriers that had been previously erected against the display of splatter and gore on screen. It's a small achievement, I suppose, but simply as a harbinger for free speech and artistic creativity, it’s one for which we should be thankful.
Peeping Tom’s poor reception by hostile British film critics, and subsequently the broader public, signaled a sharp downward spiral in director Michael Powell's vocation that he never quite recovered from. Despite the admirable reputation he’d established in preceding decades through indisputable classics like The Red Shoes (1948), The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), A Matter of Life and Death (1946) and many others he helmed through his partnership with producer Emeric Pressburger, Peeping Tom is one of those films that can rightfully be called a “career killer” — even though it’s since gone on to be not only critically respected but also revered as an innovative and influential prototype of the serial-killer/slasher subgenre, predating Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho by several months. Told almost entirely from the perspective of its oddball villain, a photographer who was subjected to grotesque psychological experiments by his famous but depraved father, the film triggered enormous scandal by encouraging viewers to positively identify with a merciless murderer who lures his victims through appeals to their vanity. What makes Peeping Tom of such enduring interesting to so many cinephiles since it initially fell into obscurity is just how central a role the medium of film plays in the formation of this fiend. Even though the movie is vulnerable to criticism that its scenario is excessively theatrical and not all that convincing as a prototype for ‘real world crime,’ most of Powell's films have that fantastic, slightly gothic element to them. His characters inhabit an enhanced reality, acting out their driving forces theatrically, and that's clearly a make-or-break point for some viewers who find fault for the artificiality of the premise. As mediated through Powell and his own lifelong dedication to the movies, the character Mark Lewis' diabolically cruel and pathetically impotent utilization of the cinematic arts adds a documentary twist that made the killing of his victims that much more upsetting to traditional viewers of the time, and equally fascinating for those of us living in a more media-saturated and somewhat jaded era in the 21st century.
BREANA MALLOY:
When I was 17, I saw The Shining (1980) for the first time. It was a fall night in a friend's three seasons room. We were all bundled up in blankets and watching the VHS tape on an old television set. It felt special. It felt like we went back in time. That was the day I fell in love with the film. Back then, I had no idea who Stanley Kubrick was or really anything about cinema. I just watched the movies that I recorded on my DVR over and over again. Now don’t get me wrong, I still did that after watching The Shining, but I started to realize how intense, interconnected, and individualized the experience of watching a movie can be. It was the first time I saw it as more than just entertainment. I couldn’t get the image of a deranged Jack Nicholson and petrified Shelley Duvall out of my head. I wanted to make sense of all the encounters they had in the hotel. I had to know about the avalanche of blood coming from the elevator. I needed to know how such an old film could captivate me so fully. I didn’t understand it, but I really wanted to. So I kept watching and learning about movies, ultimately deciding I wanted to study film in college. Today, I will usually go for slice-of-life films; however, The Shining holds a special place in my heart. I still, to this day, force my mom to watch it with me, and we uncover new symbolism together each time. It’s a nice reminder of where my love and admiration for film began.
“VISIONNAIRE SERIES: EXPERIMENTAL FILM PANEL DISCUSSION” THIS WEEK!
This THURSDAY (10/26), from 6:00pm to 8:00pm, our very own SPENCER EVERHART and NICHOLAS HARTMAN will be participating in a panel discussion hosted by the Grand Rapids Art Museum (GRAM). The panel is set to highlight experimental film in promotion of the OPEN PROJECTOR NIGHT: EXPERIMENTAL exhibition that GRFS, Wealthy Theatre, and GRAM opened to the community just a couple weeks ago and is set to run through January 2024.
Check out all the details regarding the panel from GRAM’s official event listing:
Join us for a panel discussion exploring the Michigan Artist Series exhibition Wealthy Theatre Presents: Experimental Film Selections from Open Projector Night with guest curators Nicholas Hartman (Wealthy Theatre) and Spencer Everhart (Grand Valley State University).
Inspired by Wealthy Theatre’s Open Projector Night Series, Wealthy Theatre Presents brings together a rotating selection of films by Michigan filmmakers who are expanding the possibilities of the medium.This event and Museum admission are free as part of Meijer Free Thursday Nights.
Location: Auditorium & Level 2 Galleries
Contact: For more information, email membership@artmuseumgr.org.
Cost: Free
We’ll be featuring more about this unique exhibition in upcoming issues, but for now we highly encourage everyone to attend this event on THURSDAY NIGHT!
FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT:
DM CUNNINGHAM
[BY: JACKSON EZINGA]
I sat down with DM Cunningham, a Michigan filmmaker who found his niche in the horror genre. I had the pleasure of working with DM while acting in his feature film, The Spore (2021), which was shot independently here in Michigan and distributed through Lionsgate. We talked about horror movies, our connection to Wes Craven, and the halloween season.
***
First: no need to introduce yourself to me, but for the readers who may be unfamiliar, could you please introduce yourself and tell them what you're all about?
Oh boy, what am I about? Well, okay, so I’m Matt Cunningham, or “DM” as some people know me as well. I am a filmmaker, creature creator, and YouTuber who transplanted here to Grand Rapids from LA where I worked in the film and television business for about 21 years.
What drew you to the film/video industry, especially the horror side of it?
Well, I would say probably since I was a kid, like when I was nine years old, I saw Night of the Living Dead. Probably too young to see that. But I saw it on one of those public access shows called “Shock Theater.” And it was at a sleepover at a friend's house. And everybody was kind of falling asleep but I was glued to the television. And I thought “What is this?” So as soon as I saw Night of the Living Dead, I just had to know more. Because it felt like a documentary to me. And I was kind of afraid of it at the same time…I was like, “is that, was that real?” You don't know, your nine-year-old brain is just trying to put all the pieces together. And then I just started really becoming obsessed with it. I guess, deep diving and finding Fangoria Magazine and Famous Monsters, and just anything that had to do with monsters are horror movies and stuff. So I would say it was that and Star Wars. I was like, ‘Oh, well, whatever this is, whatever they're doing, this fantastic space with creatures and zombies and all that stuff. I just want to know more. And that's what I want to do.’ So I think I knew probably by the time I was 11 or 12 that I wanted to make movies or make monsters or do something. So that was my kind of launching pad. And then I did what, you know, a lot of people did — I found a camera. And started making little movies and stuff. It was my aunt or somebody had an old Super 8mm camera that I found in a box. I couldn't afford film, right? So I would just pretend I was filming. I would set up scenarios in front of the camera with action figures or whatever. And I'd be like ‘ooh, so I'm making the scene.’ And so that was kind of the launch into it.
That kinda reminds me of my intro into filmmaking. With my friends and I, they had these little PVC pipes that you could connect and stuff, and we made a fake camera and we would just run around with it, and I was the director and I’d say “You go here,” and “You do this!” but before you can afford the technology, you pretend.
Yes! That's awesome! Yeah, you just kind of find somebody on the peripheral of my family who had, you know, so-and-so's Dad's got a video camera and you can put titles inside the camera! And so you would do that and then you would make and edit within the camera. So it was all, you know, the VHS squiggles or whatever. But there was something super awesome about just trying to have to do it that way. It made you have to think more about filming, right? As opposed to now when you can just let the camera roll. You know, you're like ‘Oh, my god, what was I thinking? 20 minutes of nothing.’
Exactly! So one of my questions was about the first horror movie you ever saw, and you answered that in your last question. I feel like a lot of kids kind of stumble across horror and that's kind of where their lifelong obsession starts. But I was wondering why you think that horror is kind of an evergreen genre? Why is it so prevalent and why does it have such a huge following?
I think what happens, especially in horror, and why there's such a rise in it, you know, I know there's people who say horror is dead but horror has always been there, right? Kind of since the beginning of cinema, even some of the first things ever filmed are like Frankenstein, or, you know, like a horror film or some sort of trope, right? And I think it's because there's so much stuff going on in the world. In these spikes and stuff, like when there's something going on, you hear a lot of filmmakers talk about; like Toby Hooper, when he did Texas Chainsaw, the Vietnam War was going on, right? So it was kind of an answer to this angst and this energy. A lot of filmmakers, and a lot of people in horror, that grew up in a space where maybe their parents went through a divorce, or there was some sort of trauma — little T” trauma — or whatever we want to call that. That was a way of kind of dealing with the anxiety. And I think when the energy in the world is anxious, that it's a release, right? What I've come to discover is horror is like the safest way to be unsafe. You can watch something super scary, but in the safety of your own home, and you can get that dopamine hit. It's a way to deal with anxieties, or it's almost like a release of fear or something that helps you work through that. So I think that it's kind of therapeutic for a lot of people. That's why it always works.
Yeah, I mean, that's what I try to tell people who ask, “why do you watch horror movies? I can't stand them!” Echoing what you're saying, it's a safe way to take your fears and anxieties and experience them in a safe way. Where after the 90 minutes, it's like, ‘alright, I felt that, I experienced that.’ Maybe that can help me process and kind of get on with things.
I had this conversation with Wes Craven one time. Freddy Krueger terrified me, right? But at some point, I started covering my walls with the posters of Freddy. In some way, it was like trying to take control of the fears that you have, and maybe that's what you do when you watch.
Yeah, kind of conquering it and kind of taking a totem or a token with you, like ‘I got through this.’ It's like ownership.
Right? You're like, ‘it doesn't control me. I can help control it.’
So going back to Wes Craven, that's kind of a ‘Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon’ that we have together. I was an extra in Scream 4 and got to work with him oh-so-briefly; got to be in the same room with him and see him work. So a question I have about that is how did you meet up with him? How did you make that connection?
So kind of going back to my childhood, oddly enough, I became a writer for a magazine called “Famous Monsters of Filmland,” which was one of the magazines I read when I was a kid. And the editor of the magazine said, “Would you like a column in the magazine?” And I was like, “What!?” So, I got an idea for an article; it started out as an article, and then he goes, “Oh, no, we should make that a column.” And I just thought “Oh, okay.” Basically, I wanted to talk about the creation of famous, iconic horror props and stuff — like the sphere from Phantasm or Freddy's glove. How did it get made? Who made it? What was the idea behind it? What did you use to make it? I wanted to know more about those specific things. And so the second article was Freddy’s glove. I think the first one was Phantasm. So I thought I should see if I can interview Wes and Robert Englund and maybe the guy who made the glove who I'm blanking on his name right now [Ed. note - it was Lou Carlucci!]. So I got a contact to speak to Wes. And he agreed because he loved the concept of the article...I got his number, I called him. We did the interview. And at the end of the interview, he said “You know, I just want to say, that was like one of the most thoughtful and thought-out interviews I had done.” Because I was just really thinking about the psychology behind the glove. And why was that, and what did you do? So he thought that was really good inroad. And we actually just ended up talking back and forth on email for a little bit. And then it was like, “Hey, do you want to go get a coffee,” and then we started having coffee, and then it was like, “you wanna get breakfast?”, and we started having breakfast, and it was like, “let's see this movie” or whatever. So it just became this friendship and, you know, he's the guy. And I told him about the posters on the wall and that whole thing, and everything, but my relationship was really starting to blossom with him, and he actually told me that he had cancer. A lot of people had no idea. And, you know, the fact that he just trusted me enough to say look, this is what I'm going through. Yeah. And I was like, okay, all right. And there'll be times when you'd have a minute or something and he was hungry, you know, and then I'd meet him for breakfast or something, but we just had really good conversations and stuff and just to sit there and get to know him and talk to him and listening to his stories, you know, as it wasn't a long time, but it was a really impactful relationship. And of course, he had told me while things had kind of taken a turn, and that's when things got worse. And it wasn't too shortly after that when he passed away. He was super nice to me, super gracious. You know, you hear from a lot of people on his sets that he was kinda mellow and calm for somebody who made such dark movies. He had a place in Martha's Vineyard and he said, “Yeah, nobody ever really knew what I did there.” It was just a different crowd or whatever, but which I thought was funny. So it was cool, man, it was obviously a huge part of my life and had a massive impact on me as a filmmaker, and just as a person.
That’s awesome. That kind of leads into my next question about what your process is for when you create a monster or creature. Because I know that you are really hands-on in your work and you help create or you yourself straight-up create a lot of the creatures and monsters that we see in your films.
I think most of my process comes from...I get inspired by watching other monsters that I've loved, whether it's Freddy or The Blob, or Critters, Gremlins, you know, things like that, that just really entertain me. And I think, usually what happens is, if I'm writing a script or something, there'll be sometimes I think of the monster first, oddly enough, which is kind of weird, but you're like, “Oh, what can I put that in?” Like, that would be cool if I did something with this kind of monster. And over time, it starts to evolve and change in the look of it. But usually I think, for most of the stuff I write, there's always got to be some sort of weird monster component to it. You know, like what we did. We did The Spore, that was kind of like a monster. I mean, it is a monster movie, but so I think that evolved when I was like, “But what if people started mutating and turning into a weird monster,” like, there was always kind of that in there? And then like, “Okay, now, what does that look like? You know, what are these things? What would they be?” I tend to look at a ton of either books or imagery of things, whether it's weird fish, or weird creatures that I'm like,” Oh, I can take teeth from that fish. And I could put it on this thing over here. What would that be interesting?” so I think I try to just take things that really fascinate me. Like, I can't stop looking at them. And then I put it together, and then I go, “Okay, but can I build that though?” There's that part where you're like, “do I have the skills to build that giant thing that I'm thinking of?” Or do I get to scale it into a way where I can put a man in a suit or is it a puppeteer? And as of lately, too, I've been just really leaning so much into my childhood. Since I've been a kid too I've always wanted to make movies like Labyrinth and Dark Crystal and star you know, like that Star Wars kind of puppet. And so I've always had that in my brain of wanting to make those and, as of late, have definitely been doing a lot more of making puppets and stuff like that to hopefully make you know more movies that lean into a little bit more of that kind of space. But I tell you, man, those movies, Critters and stuff — that's my jam. I love movies like that. But that takes a lot of people. So sometimes you're like, “Well, I've got two of us that can operate a puppet.” So we need to think about that too, like what's the thing that we can make on a budget? And how do I get Jackson out there on set and have him get attacked by something?
[laughs] Awesome! That's great. Okay, so Halloween is coming up, and I’m just wondering if you have any favorite memories or just favorite aspects of the holiday season itself? Or Halloween in general?
Oh, my goodness. Well, I mean, as probably Halloween and Christmas are my favorite holidays there's something whimsical and magical about them in some way. Like, if you saw our house right now, outside of our house, we've got a giant carnival Fun House ‘aliens invading’ theme going on right now. And everything's been hand-built and crafted. We're actually in a newsletter for, like, Top 25 houses to visit during Halloween. So that's cool. You know, it's funny, a lot of my favorite memories from Halloween have been specifically with my kids, you know, taking them trick-or-treating or doing Halloween stuff with them, going to corn mazes and stuff like that. And Michigan especially because in LA it would be so hot all the time, right. And you would go to a corn maze, I remember going to a corn maze one year with the kids and it was around 100 degrees outside and you're thinking this does not feel like fall — it's just dusty and gross and all that. But here, there's just that. And I'm sure a lot of people get that feeling but when fall starts to hit, it just kind of brings this emotion to me like from when I was a kid watching John Carpenter's Halloween and those movies made you want to be in that environment with the leaves changing and, you know, here in Michigan when it starts to hit that time I get real giddy. I wish I could make a horror movie every fall. But it doesn't always work that way. There's something about the season and the environment specifically here. That makes me get all excited about that time of year.
Perfect. We've been talking about horror movies. Have there been any horror movies you've seen lately that you think are worth a damn or really hit you?
Man, I gotta think about that for a second because I was trying to think of the last one that I watched that really...the thing is, I tend to go back and watch a lot of older films too. I've actually been watching a lot of stuff on VHS again, you know, because there's stuff that isn't streaming or just isn't available. I actually went back and got some of the old Roger Corman B-Movies on VHS like Humanoids From the Deep. I also got one called Proteus that I thought looked cool. And they all just have cool monsters — like big rubber monsters in them at the end, you know? Oh, I know. I know which one I really liked that I saw not too long ago was Evil Dead Rise. I love that one. That one was so much fun; you know for Evil Dead I was so glad to see it in a different environment and what they did with it. I was like, “Oh, this is cool.” And that was probably the last one I saw in the theater, actually.
It was a lot of fun! Especially in the finale!
Oh my god, it was so great. Yeah, just over the top. And I've been trying to watch more series and stuff like Cabinet of Curiosities and kind of trying to catch up on things. And everybody's like ‘did you see this? Did you see this?’ I'm like, sure. You know, I see that all the time. I'll be good. I'll get texts every day like ‘Dude, did you see this yet?’ But it's funny because I have a friend who sees everything in the theater right away. But then he'll text me. And they'll have a photo of like, ‘Have you ever seen these?’ What do you think there'll be, like five movies from the 80s. And it's listing The Blob, and I'm like, “Dude, I watch those repeat like every year, you know?” And he's like, “Oh...I've never seen them.”
Awesome. All right. Well thanks, Matt, really appreciate it! When I think of Michigan filmmakers, especially Michigan horror filmmakers, you're right at the top of the list. So thank you for taking the time to talk to me.
Yeah, of course, man!
You can learn more about DM and his work via his website, www.nightprowlervideo.com.
REFLECTIONS ON HORROR:
THE OUTWATERS
[BY: SPENCER EVERHART]
The hype was real: before a brief theatrical run and subsequent streaming release, Robbie Banfitch's The Outwaters (2022) was being touted as a terrifying new landmark in found footage horror that plunges its viewers into a literal abyss of darkness and tests the limits of optical legibility. The appeal and potential for this approach (maybe akin to the unforgettable phone video sequence from Lake Mungo by way of Philippe Grandrieux?) was obvious to me, especially now — we could use more horror embracing abstraction when many current offerings in the genre are so eager to spell out and underline their THEMES over and over (did you know it's About Trauma?). With a low-budget production and semi-experimental style, comparisons to Kyle Edward Ball’s terrific Skinamarink were thrown around and some thought bold independent horror was having a moment in 2023.
Regardless of possible cultural trends, once seen, my initial response to The Outwaters was mixed; I couldn't quite find the right wavelength to ride amidst its loose structure and obscurant storytelling, and it builds to an ending that I found disappointing and unconvincing. And yet. The film — particularly its latter-half 'descent into hell' — has stuck with me, and my thoughts have wandered back to its void-gazing visuals again and again. What did I see? What did I hear? How did I see and hear? What would it actually look like if a digital camera lens and sensor were to witness something incomprehensible? Sometimes frustrating but always compelling, these questions reveal Banfitch is clearly more interested in conveying a staggering sensory experience than simply a narrative one.
The original idea for this piece began with an intent to explore a particular section of the film, a “moment out of time,” ideally one that speaks to or embodies The Outwaters as a whole. So which moment to highlight? It's hard to say as the movie complicates the basic premise of this question. After the decisive turning point in the plot, each and every moment is ‘out of time’ in some way, not to mention ‘out of space’ — often aggressively so.
I suppose one standout for me is a scene I could call “The Creature,” but I'm unsure of that label's accuracy; even the term “scene” feels insufficient with the way the film jarringly ebbs and flows through its fragmented odyssey of confusion and suffering. But it begins suddenly, happened upon by the protagonist without warning, the same as his journey’s other litany of horrors. The frame is awash in black with a small portion of the darkness lit by a flashlight’s narrow beam. Certainly we do see and hear not just something...but some thing. Glistening bloody flesh, bestial growls and shuddered breathing, a piercing shriek, and brief glimpses of limbs or maybe even a claw; all this but never a sense of the whole, never an understanding of size or scale.
We’re not far from Lovecraft territory here, and the notion of a madness-inducing trip paired with an eldritch abomination means Banfitch is clearly working within the ‘cosmic horror’ vein. He keeps it reigned in, though, never giving us the relief of explanation or the satisfaction of context. What was that thing? As soon as we can ask, we’re buffeted about once more, cast adrift in a swirling dark with no references to guide us and no simple genre conventions to ground us. It suggests — and exploits — the bounds of perception, both the camera’s and ours as humans.
By actively defying description, the filmmaker aligns his impulses with someone like Stan Brakhage in an earnest attempt to craft images that resist being reduced to language. He’s grasping at something actually alien, actually Other, and at its best the film is thrillingly alive with the terror of that possibility — with sights and sounds encountered as the mind reels and unravels along the way.
If, ultimately, The Outwaters is a work whose ambition I respect and admire despite its overall failings, I still haven’t quite been able to shake it. Its earnest attempts at absolute disorientation have lingered, and there is a real trembling honesty in how it tries to express an overwhelming feeling of being out ‘there’...alone...and truly lost.
UPCOMING EVENTS
NOIR-VEMBER IS COMING…
TOUCH OF EVIL (Welles, 1958)
WHAT: When a car bomb explodes on the American side of the U.S./Mexico border, a Mexican drug enforcement agent begins his investigation, putting himself and his new bride in jeopardy.
WHEN: Monday, November 6th, 8:00pm
WHERE: The Wealthy Theatre
BLOOD SIMPLE (Coen, 1984)
WHAT: A Texas bartender finds himself in the midst of a murder plot when his boss discovers that he is having a love affair with his wife and he hires a private investigator to kill the couple, but the investigator has his own agenda.
WHEN: Monday, November 13th, 8:00pm
WHERE: The Wealthy Theatre
And so we’ve arrived at the end of another BEAM FROM THE BOOTH! We appreciate you taking the time to read it and truly hope you’ll continue to do so. Be sure to SUBSCRIBE to get each issue in your inbox every SUNDAY, and stay up-to-date on all things GRFS.
Plus, join us on social media! We’d love to chat with everyone and hear YOUR OWN thoughts on everything above (you can also hop in the comments section below).
Know someone you think will dig BEAM FROM THE BOOTH? Send them our way!
Look for ISSUE #32, our special ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY ISSUE, in your inbox NEXT SUNDAY, 10/29!
Until then, friends...
