The deviant sons of bitches at Cheap Heat Productions are at it again. The folks behind my favorite short film of 2010 The Living Want Me Dead (winner of the Audience Award at the 2010 NYC Horror Film Fest) just wrapped their latest short, "VICKI". Fans of John Carpenter's (admittedly dated) Christine are in for a hell of a treat.
Director Bill Palmer and actor Adam Conger team up once again, this time spoofing the killer car tale based on Stephen King's novel. If you know the source material, you know the story. Leslie Waterhatch (Conger) is your run of the mill nerd that's bullied by the local hooligans and ignored by the school hottie. After he buys a run down sports car turned jalopy and fixes her up, he adopts a whole new attitude on life, and is soon the cool guy with the fast car with a hot girl riding shotgun. Vicki doesn't take well to playing second banana, and is soon wreaking bloody havoc on anyone that comes between Leslie and her.
Vicki follows the beats of the source material while giving a playful thumb of the nose at the staples of 80's horror. One particular source of visual comedy is the steady procession of over the top fashion choices form the era Conger sports from scene to scene. Palmers adds nifty little homages throughout. For example, a extreme closeup on Conger's shattered eyeglass lens drew reminiscence of Hoffman in Straw Dogs.
I was a huge fan of Conger's performance in The Living Want Me Dead and he doesn't disappoint in the follow up. He's able to sell ridiculous moment, such as a scene where it looks an awful lot like he and Vicki are getting too close, all set to Debbie Gibson's Lost In Your Eyes (a song anyone of of age furiously made out to under the dimmed gymnasium lights of many a junior high school dance). Add in his ability to spout 80's catch phrases with a straight face and you have a good comic lead.
Spoofs can be tricky to pull off. Go too far over the line and you turn into "Jackie Whackadoo's Funhouse of Jokes" and become a chore to watch. The folks at Cheap Heat know what they're doing, and have pulled off a pair of shorts that blend horror, deadpan comedy and gore gags to near perfection.
0 comments:
Post a Comment