Regional Indie Movies on Big Screens

CJacobs 9-24-9

Area independent movie makers have a couple of things to note this week—an upcoming local film festival and an uncharacteristic theatrical opening of a low-budget digital feature.

The submission deadline for this year’s Forx Film Fest is fast approaching. The submission form can be downloaded from the Empire Arts Center’s website at http://www.empireartscenter.com and either mailed with a copy of the movie by Friday October 2, or delivered to the Empire in person by Monday, October 5. The festival itself is scheduled to be held November 6-7 at the Empire in Grand Forks.

The Georgia-made independent movie “Lynch Mob” opened last Friday with a limited release of about 93 locations. Well over half the theatres were in the deep South, for obvious reasons, but it also opened in a wide variety of towns scattered around the country including Grand Forks N.D., Rapid City S.D., Missoula Mont., and three Twin Cities suburbs, but not in Fargo and nowhere in California or New York. The reason for the odd distribution pattern is that the film is only playing in selected theatres owned by Georgia-based Carmike Cinemas.

Being a low-budget production, “Lynch Mob” has had virtually no advance publicity other than its website. The exploitation-style theatrical poster includes clever quotes created largely by the filmmakers themselves, such as “If you see only one cannibal, mafia, zombie horror film this year… make sure it’s LYNCH MOB!” Or “They used REAL BLOOD!” The movie’s R-rating was awarded for “pervasive strong bloody horror violence and gore, sexulity, nudity and language” - again exactly what one would expect from an exploitation film.

However, “Lynch Mob” is a few steps above average for this kind of movie in both its writing and its execution (no pun intended). It’s an extremely dark comedy with some serious subtext and some of the screen’s blackest social satire lurking below the gleefully bloody gorefest that most films of its type prefer to emphasize to the exclusion of anything else. After an unexpectedly interesting opening credits sequence, the plot develops with at least three parallel story lines, each with far more backstory than exploitation films usually bother with, and all of which inevitably become inextricably entangled, with various clever payoffs by the end.

The story has been described as “The Sopranos” meet “Night of the Living Dead” and a rehash of the cult film “2000 Maniacs.” It begins as a mafia drama with an interrogation of a family member who has been embezzling. Soon a sadistic “specialist” in extracting information named “Weasel” (Michael H. Cole) is brought in, but is later double-crossed and decides to inform to the FBI to avoid charges of pedophilia.

Meanwhile the tiny remote and aptly-named Georgia town of Lynchburg has problems of its own, because its population of 12 people have all been confined to the city limits, and have a craving to eat human flesh that can only be satisfied by dispatching the rare outsiders passing through. This is due to a 140-year-old curse that resulted when the Civil War-era inhabitants decided to burn their own property and murder all their slaves rather than allow General Sherman to destroy the town and free the slaves.

Naturally, the unsuspecting FBI decides that Lynchburg is an ideal location to stash Weasel in the witness protection program until he can testify. And naturally Weasel is first repulsed by the rural setting but soon discovers he fits in better than he expected. And naturally the mob members try to hunt him down, and things just keep on building with a bloodily amusing sense of poetic justice.

Screenwriters Rachel and Scott Stamper (who are also two of the movie’s dozen producers) pepper their script with cutesy dark puns (e.g. the local diner serving “Road Kill Stu” or “Chuck Roast” or “Italian Meatballs”). But they also establish a few deeper character relationships so that, unlike typical gore films, the audience might actually be hoping that certain characters get killed off and others don’t.

First-time director Byron Erwin’s previous IMDB credits include over ten years of film negative cutting and editing, and the experience pays off. He keeps things moving right along, aided by his own nicely timed editing and the impressive color compositions of cinematographer Tom Pritchard (shot in HD with Panasonic equipment).

The acting won’t be nominated for any Oscars but is also relatively strong for this type of movie, with the one semi-name “star” (Tony Darrow as Boss Giavanni) a regular on “The Sopranos” and appearing in several Woody Allen films.

“Lynch Mob” is by no means a mainstream film and is more suited to low budget horror festivals than suburban multiplexes. Fans of the genre will likely appreciate it most, but it displays enough creativity and talent that fans of independent cinema who can look through the gory effects and ultra-black humor may find worth their effort to see.

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