Coons! Night of the Bandits of the Night

Coons! was probably the best thing about the 2006 Tartan Road Film Festival in Boca Raton. I just walked into the screening of this thinking it was going to be another annoying high school short film. While realizing that the high school films were an hour later, I decided to sit this one out. Every single person in this small screening was laughing at every other line in the movie, and the ridiculous raccoons just added to it. Hopefully this movie finds an audience with some good word of mouth, as it was hilarious, shot well, and acted perfectly for the type of movie it was. I didn't stay around for the awards, but it would be a huge mistake if this movie didn't win. Keep submitting this to more festivals guys.

COONS! NIGHT OF THE BANDITS OF THE NIGHT takes us deep into the dark underbrush, revealing the terrible truth about the suspiciously-masked critters of the title. These furry freaks have begun to attack and devour their human neighbors. Now, mankind must fight for the survival of the species.

Enter Ranger Rick Danger (Brian Kamerer), and a host of colorful characters including: A hippie, hillbillies, Jeezuz-hugging bible boys, and a rock band. How they will be of any use in the aforementioned struggle is anyone's guess.

This micro-budget horror / comedy makes up for its total lack of funding with a barrage of idiot humor. Just wait until you see the raccoon / human hybrid zombies!

Recommended for lovers of the blissfully moronic...

And if you like sophomoric and tasteless parodies as much as I do... then you will love this movie. The comedic timing is spot on, the majority of satire is stable, and some jokes are down right hilarious... the title is a laugh standing on its own! I can see how some people might not like the film, but they are people that you don't want to hang out with anyway. On the other hand, people who can have a good time and laugh with their friends will add their new, bi-monthly catch phrase "Sh*t Snakes" to their vernacular in no time. Coons is an amateur's armature: a low budget attempt at a feature length film, and I give the young filmmakers a lot of credit. We aren't talking Oscar winning here; we're talking about a well put together spoof on a horror film. This one kept me laughing throughout... do yourself the favor and get this one... you won't regret it. Chin chin!

Travis Irvine is a director to watch out for. Not necessarily because he might hit it big with the next Hollywood mega-hit, but just because he can make a damn good Troma movie. By that I mean more than one usually expects. Usually, for example, movies released by Troma don't have stories that one can actually follow or care to follow, and the pacing sucks like a Mega-Maid vacuum. Irvine's approach, not too unlike that of Trey Parker with Cannibal: The Musical, is to be a good storyteller while *also* taking to task everything he can in the most childish ways imaginable. God, this movie is funny and fun as hell, even if it's main gimmick are raccoons who fling their own poop and can fire guns and communicate in similar immature talk like their human counterparts. I should also mention they're all taxidermed raccoons who are puppeted like Jim Henson Creature Shop drop-outs.

Cool, huh? It's about the town of Independence, in any-state USA, where Ty and his friends are settling in to party hard at a campground (and, you know, maybe Ty will lose his virginity, see what happens with the hot girls around). There's lots of Beer (name-brand "BEER") and plenty of bad-fake mustaches, and also a very real menace: raccoons prowling and attacking people any chance they get, with the people either dropping dead or becoming rabid themselves. A Hippie and a Muslim named Al-Jazeera try to combat it and get the kids and authorities involved, but to not much avail - that is until the raccoons take lots of names. And there's blood, and intestines, and puke, and feces, tons of everything, and did I mention cheesy fake blood and attacks that include raccoons that swing into action from vines from trees?

So yeah, you should know it's not Antonionni going in (then again maybe rabid raccoons were just what his career was missing), and that it's chock-full of what I've mentioned above. And there's a little more though, like actually really hilarious stuff, not just unintentionally funny, like a musical number done by the camp teens about fighting the Coons with the end of song and the reveal of who these guys are pointing their guns at to be a perfectly timed satirical gag that would make Spike Lee pee himself laughing and/or in anger (and until the end it's the only real racial humor used at the expense of the title).

The raccoons themselves are super-cheap, but it goes with everything else- the acting, the jokes, the fx, the beards and mustaches and stock footage of planes flying and well-timed fireworks. No stone is left unturned when it comes to being as stupid as they want to be, but the difference this time as opposed to cheaper and dumber Troma fare (i.e. Cornman) is that there is a good sense of pacing from the director, and for everything that's as cheesy as Wisconsin it's always a good yarn thats main limitations are with cost and talent. Mr. Irvine could go places - at the moment he's living' the dream of low-budget horror-comedy filmmakers everywhere. Go wranglers!

The "filmmakers" have produced an awful film, but that's precisely the point. The high school actors seem to be winking at us,as if to say, "Yes, me in bad movie, and me proud of it."

This is a comedy in the tradition of "Date Move," "Epic Movie," and "Sleepover." Unfortunately, the director, Travis Irvine, fails to understand that true comedy works when it is taken seriously. That's why classic spoofs like "Airplane!" and "Cannibal! The Musical" work: because the actors act as if they are in a serious drama.

"Coons" was featured at the 2006 TromaDance. It was the worst film of the night. Perhaps the cast and crew had set low standards for themselves. One would guess, by the obvious lack of production value, that the only goal Irvine and his team had in mind was "Let's make a horrible movie!"

They certainly have succeeded. "Coons" is unfunny, and not only that, it lacks skill and professionalism. Even terrible comedies like "Epic Movie" at least aim for quality in cinematography and acting.

Take for instance the poor casting. Rather than casting professional, talented comedians, Irvine cast young men who look like high school students, dressed them up in wigs and costumes, and then made them recite raccoon jokes. It looks like the worst high school play you've ever seen.

But again, that was the point. "Coons" fails as a comedy but succeeds as one of the worst independent "films" ever produced. I'm sure Travis Irvine and his crew are out there somewhere, smiling as they read this, convinced that they have made the best bad film ever. Yes, indeed, they have.