EyeAskance

John, a small town American teen, has an altercation with his neo-Nazi father, and is promptly kicked out of the house. A mutant mushroom tells John that he's the new messiah, and that he must relocate to New York City to seek his ordained destiny. He does just that(after killing his father), and spends the ensuing years living in a squalid apartment, barely scraping by as a smalltime pot dealer and affecting a brooding, Manson-like spiritual peculiarity. He's complacent in his spartan lifestyle, principally focused on providing meals for a clique of homeless punks, and watching TV fisheyed for hours on end. By and by, Paisley, an outwardly affable young lady, responds to John's housemate-wanted ad. John swindles her by telling her the rent is twice the actual price, but their ensuing cohabitation is satisfactory...for a time. Inchmeal, Paisley reveals her true unappealing colors, while John's fragile psyche grows increasingly discordant. Tensions build to fever-pitch, and culminate with a head boiling on the stove.

A shocking and well made short inspired by a notorious true-crime case, it has the edgy, nihilistic sapor of "trangressive" films made by the like of RICHARD KERN and NICK ZEDD(for instance, a sexy narratress, surrounded by impaled turkey carcasses in an otherworldly gloam, provides exposition in the shrill, rowdily poetic manner of "No-Wave" punk icon LYDIA LUNCH). The characters are fairly well developed and vivified(MICHAEL RINGER, above all, is distressingly believable), and the camerawork is sometimes surprisingly aesthetic. The continuity and pacing are a bit choppy, but at just under 40 minutes, it's not a major detriment.

WE WHO ARE NOT OTHERS is not for all tastes, but it carries the pungent sapor of a fleeting and near-forgotten NYC artpunk ethos, and is too ambitiously appointed to warrant eternity in the bonyard of forgotten films.

6.5/10...could likely galvanize a small cult following, should some skinny-jeans internet movie guru/influencer/hipster bring it to the fore.

A devout Christian couple comes charging to the rescue whe an all-American teenage boy is plagued by a malevolent female demon who forces him to speak insultingly to people in a shrill, raspy voice. The demon is successfully driven out, but the boy's brother ends up possessed by The Devil himself. With a sinisterly-smooth Anton LaVey type of affectation, he shirks away from crosses, laughs coldly at those of The Faith, and rambles on about how he's never letting go of the young man's body and soul. Will the tormented youth accept Jesus Christ as his lord and savior and be saved? You bet your sweet ass, he will.

This lackluster church-funded Christian scare film plays out like a dull Jack Chick comic tract. No excoriated possession victims with spinning heads or pea-soup upchuck here, just a lot of preachy backchat and too little fire and brimstone to keep it lively. I suppose it could possibly medialize a minor cult fanbase should it become better-known, but it's nowhere near as much fun as THE GRIM REAPER(1976), or the brain-melting IF FOOTMEN TIRE YOU, WHAT WILL HORSES DO?(1971).

On second thought, it might make a perfect co-feature to the gay XXX Exorcist clone SEX DEMON(1975). Okay, okay...I repent.

The brief chronology of a young bohemian folk singer during the nascent phase of his career is more-less a skeletal narrative provided to interweave a succession of musical performances and epigrammatic vignettes centered around the colorful staff and patrons of a Left Bank style coffeehouse(chiefly beatniks, surf-rats, folkies, and other young nonconformists of the time).

DIRTY FEET, a very independent little film produced on breadcrumb rations, was in urgent jeopardy of becoming lost to the Lethe of cinema oblivion until somewhat recently, when a limited home viewing sufficiency was made available. It's an interesting curio, eagerly effectuated by an amateur personnel at every juncture of production, and spotlighting some wonderful music talent from the beat/folk undertow. All this lively hurly-burly takes place at a long defunct California establishment called, in true beat fashion, THE PRISON OF SOCRATES...a eclectic venue of considerable lore which is now remembered with rhapsodic wistfulness by its living clientele.

I can't imagine this film being well received by mainstreamers, but it's unlikely that they'd ever merge with it in the first place. Conversely, those of us who appreciate the creative brio and enthusiasm which fuel grassroots cinema should find it well enjoyable. It captures a zeitgeist of its time in a firsthand and very naturalistic way...rather surprising, as this particular subculture has been habitually misrepresented in media depictions to a nigh Vaudevillian extreme, and is today somewhat misunderstood in consequence.

6/10.

A fairly uncommon soundtrack LP exists.