Pulpmovies Reviews

Regardless of the music we listen to when we’re young, the lifestyle we affect or the subculture we identify with, most of us eventually grow up, get a sensible haircut and haul ourselves on to the 9 to 5 treadmill. But what if you don’t? What if you stay uncompromisingly true to your youthful values?

Meet Bill.

Bill (Bill Zebub) is metal all the way through. He has the attitude, the look, the girl. He has no job, no car and no money. And this inability to secure any sort of income is really beginning to grate on his girlfriend, Elaine (Emily Thomas). Although Elaine wants more than Bill is able to offer, he is available and not going anywhere so Elaine satisfies herself with the apparently safer option of lusting after Bills friend, Rich (Tom Goodwin) instead of risking making any real changes to her life.

And that pretty much sums the film up. Writer/director Bill Zebub doesn’t give us a huge amount of plot with Metalheads, preferring instead to allow us to simply spend time with the three main characters as they drift, aimlessly through their lives. What the film does manage to do very successfully, however, is bring these characters to life. It achieves this with both a very well observed script that accurately captures the cod-philosophical self-justifications of this collection of no-hopers and with a solid set of performances that manage to parody the the characters without descending into over-the-top silliness.

The film is more than a collection of scenes, however, and as the characters come to life, conflicts – both real and imagined – emerge and, while often trivial, these are enough to drive things forward and ensure that everything hangs together.

All of this makes for a film that is consistently funny. Metalheads is packed with jokes. And gratuitous nudity. And jokes about gratuitous nudity, many of which are laugh out loud funny. It’s a film that know what it wants to achieve and one approaches its subject matter with a real sense of fun. Not only you do get a real sense that the people behind it had a lot of fun making this film, but this sense of fun really does make it on to the screen.

Metalheads tries to do two things at once by affectionately mocking both the metalhead culture and the stereotypes that surround it. Although not all of the scenes work – and there is one scene near the end of the film that is jarringly unpleasant – the film as a whole does achieve its aims and manages to be very funny to boot. It also includes the funniest portrayal of drug-induced paranoia I have seen in a long time.

If you’ve worked in an office for any length of time, it’s a near inevitability that you will eventually find yourself sent on a course. While some of these courses can be quite useful, many of them aren’t useful at all. One day Seminar is a short film about one of these less than beneficial courses, and the speaker that presents it.

The seminar presenter in question is Benson Mountebank (Tommy Murray) and the film, taking its cue from the sort of fly-on-the-wall comedy so brilliantly embodied by The Office, follows him as he arrives at an anonymous hotel, prepares and then presents a one-day seminar on Succeeding as a First Time Manager.

It quickly becomes apparent that not only does Benson have a vastly inflated opinion of himself, he’s also a pretty inept character whose advice amounts to little more than a collection of empty platitudes. Although I’ve not attended a course quite as badly run as this one, writer/director Martin Binder does manage to sail uncomfortably – and often hilariously - close to reality.

There is much to like in this film. Its humour relies on the sort of gentle cynicism that wouldn’t be out of place in a Dilbert cartoon and the characters that are introduced clearly have a great deal of comic potential.

In fact, my only real gripe about this film is that it is too short. At only twenty minutes long, there simply isn’t enough time to really get to grips with the main characters – not just Benson Mountebank but also the wonderfully realised head of the Tryan Learn Institute, Ted Misanthrope (Grover Silcox). These are characters that really do deserve to be developed further and, although there is a limit to how far a single joke can be stretched, there are certainly enough ideas in here to make for a 60 minute film.

One Day Seminar is a film that is well worth checking out and one that finishes with a superb punchline. But don;t just take my word for it, visit the Tryan Learn website and ask your manager about a course in Fundamentals of Document Destruction.

Imagine, if you will, Plan 9 From Outer Space written and directed by someone who not only shared Ed Wood’s enthusiasm for his chosen genre, but by someone who not only knew what they were doing but also had a sense of humour. And if you can imagine that, you are pretty close to Flying Saucer Rock N Roll.

The film is set in 1957, a happy time (to quote from the synopsis) of big fins, Rockabilly music and innocent teen love. The teens in question are Johnny (Joshua Duthie), the local square who has finally managed to land himself a date with Susie (Shannon Lark).

After a couple of false starts, things finally start to to go right for Johnny. But this can’t last and he and Susie are intruded on by Maynard (Elan Freydenson), a beatnik stoner who tells them that the Martian zombies are coming!

Johnny and Susie, of course, find this more than a little difficult to believe until they see the proof with their own eyes and then it’s up to Johnny to discover his inner cool, rescue his girl and save the world.

It is all very stereotyped, but these are fun stereotypes and they are very effectively brought to life by some very strong performances by the cast. So much so that you find yourself genuinely caring about what is going to happen to the characters, even while laughing at the jokes.

Obviously, being a monster movie, the make-up and special effects do matter and here the film performs admirably. Although the film was made for a very low budget, every penny clearly made it onto the screen and the effects are both effective and (in one case) quite painful to watch.

Music also makes up a large part of the film’s success with a rockabilly soundtrack – and performances – that manage to capture the spirit of both the film and the era it portrays.

Flying Saucer Rock N Roll is an affectionate, and very funny, tribute to the dodgy science fiction films and monster movies of the 1950s. Writer/director team Joe & Eric Callero clearly know and love these films and manage to pay tribute to them in a way that is a lot of fun without needing to descend into overt caricature.

It’s well written, solidly acted, and packed with lines that are laugh out loud funny. I’d recommend it to anyone.

Oscar (Oscar Castro) and Brett (Brett Poquette) are a pair of producers – their production being a public access cable TV show. They are also behind on their mortgage – three months behind, and facing foreclosure. Our heroes need to find funds, and quickly.

So begins an absurdist mockumentary about a group of film school graduates, a small time gangster and a Muppet as they try to find a way to keep themselves – and their programme – afloat. Their schemes range from the silly to the surreal until they finally hit upon the idea of making a film about making a cable TV show.

Making a film about making a film is something that has been done before, but what separates this film from similar efforts is that the programme at the centre of events – The Adam Bomb Show – really does exist. The people involved in the film are the same people that are behind the TV show (I’m not so sure about the Muppet, though) and this really does add to the sense of camaraderie amongst the characters.

This approach also makes for a unique combination of faux documentary, character comedy and absurdist sketches all of which slot together rather effectively. But what really carries this film forward is the sheer likeability of the two main characters.

The characters of Oscar and Brett are very well drawn and rounded enough to feel like real people and to generate some genuine empathy. The writing is thoroughly brought to life by the two actors who both put in strong enough performances that, even when things start to get silly, they remain both believable and sympathetic.

I found the film is a little hit and miss in places, although at least some of this is probably down to a lack of familiarity on my part with public access TV. However, the jokes do come thick and fast, and there are many more that work than don’t.

Overall, this is a fun film peopled with a collection of amiable characters whose circumstances do keep you genuinely interested in how things will pan out. The structure of the film also allows it to take a subtle dig at the accuracy – or otherwise – of more mainstream documentaries and, as a gentle satirist, I think that writer/director T. Anthony Moore could have a great future.

What goes around comes around. A jogger helps a motorist avoid a parking fine, the motorist helps an elderly woman, and so it turns. One act of kindness leads to another as each person passes their good karma along the chain.

The film has no dialogue and writer/director Owen Thomas demonstrates a real flair for visual storytelling. We know what is happening and what the characters are thinking because we can see it and the plot really does need no explanation.

It helps, of course, that the cast is so strong throughout and able to consistently bring enough personality to their characters to generate some real empathy. The mood of the film is also hugely helped by the soundtrack – a single piece of music that really does set the tone.

It’s not just the music though. Everything here, from the cinematography and the editing to the characterisation, comes together perfectly to to tell a straightforward story that is threaded through with a really positive mood throughout.

The Road is a film about life, good intentions and random acts of kindness and one that creates such a genuinely uplifting tone that, when the punchline comes, it is both unexpected and laugh out loud funny.