Coven

What you don't understand is that Mike and Mark have both been to numerous Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. That is the background and inspiration for "Coven." From what you have seen in "American Movie," you may have realized that Mike Shank is a recovering drug abuser. Borschardt has had his share of spins with the bottle.

The "Coven" meetings are far-fetched, but they are not entirely baseless. AA meetings are one-sided, and AA members have a monopoly on the TRUTH. If an outsider goes to one, then it is taken as a given that he has erred and ruined his life. It is a very grueling process to become involved in AA, and the results are mixed at best. Many people recover better with no attendance at all.

"Coven" is Borschardt's spin on AA.

Its one of those movies that is just a film to some, but a powerful social commentary for others. Mark Boschardt proves himself as a capable film maker, not the man so obviously mocked in American Movie (though when asked about his portrayal in American Movie, Mark Boschardt said "They were making their own movie, I'm not going to judge it so harshly").

The story is simple; a drug addict/alcoholic writer almost dies from an overdose. Hoping to stay sober, he tries out a support group which doesn't quite work for him. So he tries to stay sober on his own. This, of course, becomes impossible as we see the true nature of the support group, which drives him to further drug use in the movie (they do not take kindly to his not returning). The motivations of the group are unknown throughout the movie, and are still unclear at the end.

But the moral and message of the film are clear enough. Those who are in Alcoholics Anonymous will tell you to steer clear of this film, and to quote Boschardt once more "AA feels that if you don't get help from them, or God, then you haven't gotten help at all." This movie struck close to home with me, and I was really glad to be able to meet Mr. Boschardt himself. After all, it is quite obviously a very personal film for him. 4 stars.

I, like anyone else, never would have heard of this film had i not seen Chris Smith and Sarah Price's brilliant, funny and extremely touching documentary "American Movie". I recently purchased the "American Movie" dvd which contains "Coven", invited over a few other fans of the documentary, and gave it a go. The after disscussion concluded with the notion that had Mark Borschardt tried harder to stick with one genre he could have better concentrated on the story and suspense aspects of the horror or the plot and character development of the drama. He has a very artistic look to his film (context - coffee cup) and i believe his only flaw is a lack of concentration on the characters and story (content - the coffee). i am intrested in the results of "Northwestern".

After watching American Movie, you have the option on the DVD to view the short film Coven. After watching this, most will come to the conclusion that Mark Borchardt is not an amazing independent film maker. He is in fact just one of many "movie makers" that want to be the next big thing. Mark's 3 year struggle to make this film was a problem of Mark's own doing. Many of the mistakes and unprofessional storytelling made Mark spend months and months correcting his vision. A victim of circumstances and his own Ego, Mark should have waited and saved thousands of dollars by shooting the entire movie on digital. He could have shot the same movie in 1 week and saved 90% of the money he spent. Shooting on 8mm or 16mm doesn't make you a film maker. Coven was Mark's calling card to prove to the world of his talent. Conclusion: Mark is a dime a dozen. Then again, it shows you how much heart one movie maker has to make his / her movie.

This movie sucks.

I know how much work goes into a production like this and I feel for Mike and everything he did with this movie, but it's quality is shoddy as hell. And I don't mean the camera and stuff like that. I LOVED clerks and that was shot with the same thing.

First of all, you can't tell when the protagonist is hallucinating and when he's not. The Cinematography doesn't carry those scenes. Now, this could be interesting if the plot was cohesive, but that doesn't happen either. A combination of poor dialogue, awkward transitions, and poor pacing stop that.

Honestly, this movie is just one giant manifestation of how Mark is in denial about his alcoholism.

But god bless him for making it.