Festival Coverage by Zach Dennis and Reid Ramsey
For four days in May, the 7th annual Chattanooga Film Festival screened more than 25 feature films (and dozens of shorts) spanning indie horror, documentaries, and cult classics from around the world alongside Q&A sessions with Ice-T and Joe Dante as well as workshops and live podcast recordings.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the festival shifted from its April date to a May weekend that was hosted completely virtually courtesy of Microsoft. Zach and Reid were able to catch up with around six features and the Tennessee Shorts block while watching the festival online and from home.
Reid: At this time last year, you and I were down in Chattanooga for the Chattanooga Film Festival. We watched a bunch of movies, ate some good food, and had a pretty typical film festival experience. Then as the festival approached this year — I wasn’t originally going to be able to attend, but I believe you were planning to — COVID-19 made it clear that the festival wouldn’t take place. However, just a couple weeks after the planned dates of the festival, the folks running it announced that they would be offering an online version of this festival. The idea was that via an online platform, they’d have all the features and shorts available to be streamed for four days. They bolstered that on-demand lineup with a number of virtual live events as well. You and I both managed to see features and shorts, but before we dig into that I wanted to ask, how was your experience of the festival? Is this a model for the future or is this just a nice fix while we wait for conditions to be better for us to experience film festivals the way we’re used to?
Zach: Yeah, I had planned to attend for what I believe is my third straight year going. I enjoy the Chattanooga Film Fest, not only because it’s located in my hometown, but also because it features a number of films that usually make the cut for my favorites of the year while also keeping a very community-oriented feel to it. It never feels too big or out of its depth, it feels very much like a festival for the fans.
So regarding their pivot to online screenings, I felt like they really knocked it out of the park. I spoke about the experience a bit on the podcast but the thing you miss while going virtual is the thrill of the festival – I love having to make that gut call between two movies playing at the same time or rushing from one screening to another. That being said, the format of having everything available to you at once was incredibly handy, and allowed me to sort of sit and allow the line-up to come to me. I feel like that might take away from the curatorial aspect of festival organizing but the CFF also included the appointment “live” events that still contained that festival feel.
Overall, I think they nailed it and the film line-up is a reflection of that. Speaking of...
The Beach House (2019) by Jeffrey A. Brown
Reid: The Beach House opens on a deserted neighborhood overlooking the beach. Two college students, Emily (Liana Liberato) and Randall (Noah Le Gros), get out of a car and walk up to a house. It’s soon clear that the couple is there in an attempt to rekindle the flame they felt back at school. The movie begins with the atmosphere of a romantic drama.
It only takes a few minutes before we realize something is up, though. After they settle in, Emily makes her way downstairs and realizes that the house seems a little more occupied than they expected. This is the first instance that something sinister may be afoot. They realize that an older couple, friends of Randall’s father, is staying there. The atmosphere of the movie shifts to a bit of a thriller, it’s never clear whether this couple is who they say they are.
Eventually, though, it becomes clear that the troubled air surrounding this beach house, doesn’t have as much to do with the people as it has to do with the environment itself. I won’t spoil where this movie eventually goes, but it’s important to understand these shifts.
While I enjoyed The Beach House as a horror flick that occasionally digs into body horror, I wished that its actual tempo had been able to keep up with the shifting ideas and plot. As we realize the full extent of everything that happens, the characters and story stick to an unfortunately slow crawl. The ambition of Jeffrey A. Brown’s film is laudable, but to really be the thriller it wanted to be, Brown needed to kick its pace up a notch.
The Wanting Mare (2020) by Nicholas Ashe Bateman
Zach: Your use of the word atmosphere in your Beach House review is probably a good starting point for the next film on the list, and the first I caught at the festival – The Wanting Mare. I would encourage readers to check out these links about the creation process as director Nicholas Ashe Bateman cut his teeth with visual effects work in films such as A24’s The Green Knight and Wendy on top of making this film.
The other important aspect to note is that this is executive produced by Shane Carruth, who is known for providing a real visceral experience with his own films Primer and Upstream Color.
I’ll be curious to hear from you Reid, but this one has really sunk in with me after watching it. I wasn’t immediately gripped and I tried my best to give listeners to Episode 301 of the podcast an idea of the plot, but the more I think about it, the more I realize the plot and those mechanisms are secondary to everything else on display. The largest takeaway I have is that this doesn’t feel beholden to anything else. I’m sure you could sit and point out connective tissue to science fiction staples that are regularly referenced in other films such as 2001: A Space Odyssey or Blade Runner, but I couldn’t think of anything that tied to The Wanting Mare. The entire narrative feels like it is taking place in a different planet or realm, which the more I thought about, the more I really liked that decision by Bateman.
What did you make of this one? Were you able to get on its wavelength quickly or did it take time?
Reid: It definitely took some time for me to get into The Wanting Mare but by about halfway through, I was all in. It’s kind of like something you said, I’ve never really seen anything like this movie. The visual style of the film is completely unlike any sci-fi movie I’ve seen, any drama I’ve seen, and fantasy movie I’ve seen. To me, the characters felt almost divorced from their surroundings. I don’t mean this in the negative way someone might complain about obvious green screen usage in a movie. This feature actually enhanced my enjoyment of the plot, which, you’re right, is tough to follow.
The story takes place in a place called Whithren. Every person in Whithren desires a ticket for a boat ride to a better place. The fact that every person also appears to pull and float away from their settings distances their realities the same way in which always desiring this ticket likely does. No person can feel completely attached to their surroundings if they’re always trying to leave.
I’ve tried often to come up with other comparable movies to The Wanting Mare, to no avail. For a movie to create such a compelling atmosphere that visually captures the heart of the movie is quite the accomplishment in my opinion.
Zach: I agree, and the ironic thing is that is what makes it so hard to discuss! Nothing really tangible or stable in film at all, but extremely compelling because of it. That being said, there are so really moving moments. I was swept up in a sweet rekindling of lost love between two of the characters late in the film. The moment works because it seems to transcend a lot of the opaqueness that precedes it, and is just two people trying to fight all that and connect. That’s where a lot of the beauty comes from here – fighting through that swaying motion and finding some semblance of peace.
The Vice Guide to Bigfoot (2019) by Zach Lamplugh
Zach: The next feature I caught was a satire of both paranormal “documentaries” as well as the format of VICE docs, which ironically enough was created by VICE: The Vice Guide to Bigfoot. I’ll be honest – I didn’t like this one at all.
It felt like a euthanized episode of Documentary Now! (which is much more astute and caring for the format of documentary filmmaking and the movies they are lampooning). For a direct reference, I would recommend the second episode of the first season, which is a much more effective parody of the VICE format.
The story in this one is of a VICE correspondent, Brian Emond, who is tired of following “uninspired” stories, and is even more upset when he is assigned to go on a hunt for Bigfoot in North Georgia along with his friend and frequent cameraman Zach, and Bigfoot enthusiast and “expert” from the area named Jeff.
The aspirations of the satire are to lampoon both the absurdity of VICE’s quest for “the real story” along with a mash-up of myth, but it just feels very half-baked to me. I also get a little defensive when we get very boring, blanketed representations of the South from non-South located news outlets, and this just feeds into stereotypes rather than actually trying to get its location any true characterization. Sure, it’s a mockumentary and not an actual doc, but it lacks any teeth to really lampoon its Brooklyn-based leads against the Southern caricatures they run up against. I go back to my reference to Documentary Now! or even the work of a director like Christopher Guest to point to the ways you can lampoon a situation without degrading its environment or community. The IFC show finds ways to show a lot of love and devotion to the satires of these seminal documentaries, and uses the opportunity to highlight the absurdity of the situations depicted or punch at the targets that deserve to be punched at. Vice Guide seems to want to make fun of its “hipster” stereotype but, again, has zero teeth to do so.
I know I’m mostly negative on this one, what did you think?
Reid: I’m right there with you, which is a bummer because this concept really excited me. My chief complaint is that this movie is not remotely funny. I like that you invoke Documentary Now! though, because even that show isn’t always funny. The difference is, when Documentary Now! isn’t funny it still engages with genuine satire and occasionally sincerity and respect towards it’s subjects.
For the most part, The Vice Guide to Bigfoot leaned into the most expected, least interesting possible humor in almost every single situation. At risk of being too harsh, teenagers could’ve written this same movie (and maybe been funnier?). I also agree with your sensitivity to their lazy satire of the South. It’s been done, and it’s been done much better.
I truly wish the movie had just found something interesting or funny beyond the premise. At every angle that it tries to lampoon, they give up after the easiest possible joke.
The Wave (2019) by Gille Klabin
Zach: This is the first feature I strayed from you on, and I really only watched it because it featured a few familiar faces in Justin Long and Donald Faison. The story is pretty simple: Long plays Frank, an insurance lawyer who is excited to present a discrepancy found in what was assumed to be an open and shut case to his superiors, which will surely lead to promotion for the young riser. To celebrate the night before, he goes out with his friend Jeff (Faison) and ends up on a double date (despite being married) with two women. While Jeff flirts with one, Frank strikes up a conversation with Theresa (Sheila Vand of A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night) and while she is a bit turned off by his buttoned up persona, continues the conversation throughout the night and to a house party.
While there, the two of them happen upon an almost shaman-like figure who provides them with a hallucinogenic drug that he says is unlike any other. Both of them take it and the next morning, Frank wakes up in the house where the party was and is completely lost on what happened after he took the drug. He’s able to rush to work and make the presentation to his bosses, but soon figures out that the effects of the drug are still happening and he is unwillingly skipping or drifting off for the majority of the day.
The rest of the film is pretty standard as Frank and Jeff attempt to locate the drug dealer along with Theresa while Frank slowly learns that his big win at work will actually hurt the family of a recently fallen firefighter.
I kinda found this to be in the same wavelength as something like Nerve (which I love) and Limitless in how a lot of the appeal of the movie comes from the attempt by the filmmakers to bring the audience into the effects of the drug or experience the characters are living (including the consequences), but I didn’t find The Wave to be quite as astute as either of those films. While the whole effects sequences are the driving force, it seemed like those were the bulk of the time investment while fleshing out an actual story with a point was secondary. Like sure, Frank should learn the lesson that caring about others is more important than getting a promotion at his corporate job, but we’ve seen that before? Where’s the meat?
I’m going to steal a Peter Travers line (I can only assume) and be like: After watching The Wave, I wish I could take a hallucinogenic drug that could skip through the day so I could get past this quickly! But that’s as lazy as the story for this one.
I was much our ravished by our next pick...
Climate of the Hunter (2019) by Mickey Reece
Reid: I’ll be honest, I mostly picked Climate of the Hunter on a whim, as the on-demand style of the fest allowed, and I’ve rarely been more happy for randomly choosing a movie. This 70s horror pastiche was the most unexpected delight of the festival for me. Mickey Reece’s film takes place at a few cabins in the woods as two sisters (Mary Buss and Ginger Gilmartin) welcome their old friend, Wesley (Ben Hall), to stay a few days in a cabin near them on vacation. At different points through their stay, the sisters are each rather taken with Wesley. They also slowly discover that Wesley may not be who they remember him to be. He may, in fact, be a vampire.
I don’t tend to enjoy pastiche movies, because more often than not, they seem so beholden to replicating that they forget their own identity. In more precise terms, I feel like they forget to actually be entertaining. What I absolutely love about Climate of the Hunter, though, is that Reece knows exactly when to lean into the elements that remind the viewer of older horror movies, and when to let go and let his cast just have a blast. It was easily the funniest movie of the festival for me.
Overall, I was flat-out impressed and entertained by Climate of the Hunter. I only hope it can get some type of release so that others can enjoy it as much as people seemed to enjoy a movie like The Love Witch a few years ago.
Zach, I know I just gushed about Climate of the Hunter maybe more than my fair share, but what are your thoughts? Were you sold on Reece’s film?
Zach: I enjoyed this one a lot as well. I like the pastiche movies you described when they’re doing with a lot of devotion and intention. Kind of similar to the discussion we had about Vice Guide to Bigfoot – you have to know the people making the movie truly care about the format they’re utilizing. Reece clearly does, and that care comes through and makes the experience entertaining.
The performance by Ben Hall as Wesley was the big takeaway for me. He’s able to carry scenes of the movie but also really turn and give you those over-the-top moments that are insinuating to the audience that he is a vampire, but just seems like he’s a bad party guest to the characters. There’s one scene where his son has come to visit him and he makes Wesley and the two sisters dinner, and he covertly adds garlic to the salad dressing, which slowly erodes at Wesley as he tries to continue another pompous discussion on some random topic. The fight between wanting to continuing pontificating while also fighting the vampire-hurting garlic is well-done.
This would be a big recommendation from me from this festival. I think a lot of people, especially fellow Cinematary contributors, would dig this. All credit to you, Reid, for mentioning to me on the last day to watch it.
Tennessee Filmmaker Short Films
Zach: I’m glad we were able to make some time for a shorts program, which is always one of my goals (and favorite things to do) at any festival as it provides an opportunity to see what others are doing on a much smaller scale, and in many ways, much more effectively than a feature-length version. I figure the easiest way to do this would be to highlight our favorites so I can start:
La Sirena (2020): Directed by Matteo Servente, this film follows a 911 dispatcher played by Beth Grant (who viewers would recognize from films such as Donnie Darko or Little Miss Sunshine) and a local barber, who happen upon this 10-year-old boy in a stolen car. It’s very much a dropped in tale as there is a bit of a beginning and an end that seems like it could be the start of something larger, but this displays one thing I love about many great short films and that’s the ambiguity they leave you with. Sure, they could follow the boy as he tries to reach his goal, find his parents, etc. But this is focused on the relationships between the three characters and the empathy displayed between them, even though they don’t have to be. It’s a bit of a “the good of people” film, which is nice to have nowadays and Grant is always such a nice presence.
Driving Louise (2020): Directed by Isaac Knopf, this was probably my favorite of the shorts program. It follows Louise, an elderly widow who posts in her church group asking if someone would drive her to the cemetery a few hours outside of town in order to visit her late husband. 19-year-old Ezra is home from college and doing nothing so her mom enlists her to help Louise with her journey. What I liked most about this short is its handling of queer identity in the South in a way that was subtle and touching rather than a heavy-handed, and toothless, lesson. It also steers away from the typical paths that could be taken with this story being set in the South, and is more about the complexities of sexuality and identity rather than having someone overcome their prejudice to accept another person. Ezra is revealed to identify as bisexual, which she discusses near the end with Louise. She talks about her fear of coming out to her mother because her bisexuality might not be as clear to her as her brother’s very out gay identity, which she has already accepted. This triggers a number of flashbacks for Louise of a relationship she had with a woman in what seems to be a period of time between marrying her husband and him coming back from war (a la Casablanca or something of that nature). It’s clear that Louise had a lot of love for this woman and cherished the relationship, but is in the same place as Ezra and unable to really articulate it without 1) taking away from the clearly loving relationship she had with her husband and 2) not wanting to step on the taboos of Southern culture. Again, I liked this because it seemed to follow a much more nuanced and different path than “I”m gay and my Southern and Christian parent won’t accept me,” instead it felt much more progressive in its goal and is about the complexities we still face in understanding ourselves and our needs and desires, and why open conversation and dialogue is key to overcoming it.
Friend of a Friend (2019): Directed by Matthew Fisher, this comedy follows a down-on-his-luck singer who takes a job at a pet crematory that his uncle runs. I liked how strangely meditative this short was as the singer learns that just having the skills and desire to follow songwriting aren’t enough. As he watches, and listens, to his uncle and the very Eastern philosophical perspective he takes with caring for these animals and their grieving owners, there’s a bit of a lesson in empathy that he takes away; naturally inspiring him to take up his guitar once again. It’s a sweet and pretty funny film, and one that I think people would enjoy.
What about you? Any shorts stick out to you?
Reid: I don’t want to rehash your picks too much, because I mostly agree with them. La Sirena was an unexpectedly affecting movie that really struck me as a tale of goodness and happenstance that could positively change the lives of everyone in the story. Driving Louise appeared to be about one thing, teenage discontent, when in reality it revealed itself to be about queer identity and sacrifice like you said. I’ll highlight one short you don’t mention.
A Common Era (2020): Directed by Drew Maynard, this 10-minute short follows a pastor in either the late 90s or early aughts as he writes his first email. The voiceover we hear is the email itself as he rambles somewhat poetically about the state of his church, the state of the broader church, and the state of the world. He’s mostly just grateful for this new technology that Peter and Paul would have used to transform the world, so he writes. Aside from being funny, this short highlighted what a lot of churches in the South look like today. In fact, maybe more so than they did in the 90s and 00s. His church is in disrepair; his flock is small; the Sunday School classrooms haven’t been used in ages. The most interesting facet of the movie is that as we see this disrepair, we hear his hopeful wording of the email. It’s not so much that A Common Era is making new ground or even giving a voice to the voiceless, but I think what Maynard is able to capture is the crumbling surroundings a lot of us face. He juxtaposes those surroundings with a hopeful voice. The finished product is a work of melancholy that is equal parts funny, sad, and hopeful.
Homewrecker (2019) by Zach Gayne
Reid: Zach Gayne’s Homewrecker really dug into some of my specific anxiety. Michelle (Alex Essoe) is an interior designer and gym rat. One day while working at a coffee shop, a woman walks in whom she recognizes from the gym. This pushy woman, Linda (Precious Chong), begs her to come over and talk over some design for her home. Out of Michelle’s goodness, she decides it’s too hard to say no to someone like Linda. While she’s at Linda’s, she slowly realizes that Linda may be a little less kind than she appears to be. After having afternoon cocktails and watching an afternoon movie, Michelle decides it’s time to leave. At this point, Linda knocks her out cold and locks her in an upstairs room.
The story unfolds similarly to other stories which pit someone against their kidnapper. One unique aspect of Gayne’s film, though, is Linda’s character. She seems to be completely stuck in her teenage years, fetishizing objects of the past and wanting to “talk about boys.” Alongside this, Gayne utilizes an interesting score by Doug Martsch which reminds me way more of the teen doldrums of some of Sofia Coppola’s films than it does of kidnapper thrillers. During a violent struggle to set herself free, Michelle’s grunting and yelling is accompanied by a droning that seems almost uninterested in what’s happening on the screen. This aspect of Homewrecker seemed odd to me at the beginning of the movie, but eventually proved to be one of its biggest strengths.
Homewrecker may be derivative of other films in the same genre, but Gayne and company bring in unique elements like the score that set it apart. What the film lacks in visual style, it makes up for with the disjointed score and rejection of genre.
BEST OF THE FEST
Zach’s Pick: I would have to go with The Wanting Mare as it’s the one film from this year’s festival that has really stuck with me. I’ll be curious to see where Nicholas Ashe Bateman goes from here, and I hope he continues to do what he did with this film. I would also like to include a favorite from the shorts block, Driving Louise, and reiterate its really nuanced message of understanding identity and sexuality while living in the South.
Reid’s Pick: While I really enjoyed The Wanting Mare, Climate of the Hunter easily wins my pick here. The performances, the comedy, the homage, every aspect coalesces into one of the most enjoyable movie-watching experiences I’ve had in a long while.