Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2019
Images from the Internet
Mind Melters: A Collection of Short Films
Directed by James Balsamo
Acid Bath Productions / Tortured Soul Productions
90 minutes, 2019
Life is a journey,
even for a horror auteur with a bad case of the puns. This release is a record
of director / writer / musician / actor / etcetera James Balsamo’s passage. Like
most other indie instigator / troublemakers, he started by creating short films
that gained him some skills to create his feature films, many of which are
reviewed on this blog.
And, like many others,
the earlier the films, the more crudely made they are, many apparently in VHS or
early digital format that is blurry and distorted; but that’s okay. Yes, I use the
word auteur often with certain directors, and James Balsamo (JB) fits
the description well. Sure, there are a number of mostly horror and comedy
genres, but there are also police shoot-‘em-ups, commercials (real and fake),
trailers (ditto), and so forth. In fact, there are 32 shorts here, ranging from
about a minute long to about 15 minutes.
Of course, some are more
successful than others, but as I said, you can see the growth from quick set
pieces with distracting jump cuts to scenes that flow much better later on.
This is normal in the process of learning any craft.
Taking them out of
context (i.e., the order they are presented), I will combine comments with
notes I took while watching this 90-minute collection. I’m not going to include
all the shorts in the review for length.
At the beginning, we
are given a number of trailers, such as the “Snake Women of the ssssSS,” a
different and much earlier vision of “I Spill Your Guts” than JB’s 2012 feature
(this one is particularly VHS-type blurry), the animated opening to “Cool as
Hell II: The Quest for God’s Bong” from 2017, “Boonies” (particularly bad jump
cuts here in this very early work), the digitally damaged “I Spill Your Guts 2,”
“Hell for Rent” and the sword and fantasy “Cruller: Donut Defendor” [sic].
It isn’t until just over 17 minutes in that the actual short films start.
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| Frank Mullen |
The first is the
ridiculously titled “Gory Tits,” a somewhat inconsistent nonsense with a witch
with uncomfortable looking contact lenses, a sex ring run by some fake Asians,
and a serial killer (the ever demure Frank Mullen); Genovesa Rossi steals her
scenes, here. I enjoyed the sheer experimentality of “[Classified],” which is in B&W and set in an asylum. JB
sees version of the ape/diver from Robot Monster (1953)-meets-the skull-faced
creature from Killer Waves (2016). It is reminiscent of silent comedies
mixed with the disturbing Un Chien Andalou (1929) and perhaps a bit of Eraserhead
(1977).
The thing about a lot
of these shorts is that with many, there is no beginning or ending, just a
couple of set pieces that may or may not make sense whether in or out of context,
and yet are still enjoyable. For example, there an untitled piece with JB playing
three parts, including a very funny stoner, an Andrew Dice Clay kinda guy called
Wolf, and his wife Debbie (seen from the knees down). Wolf has this interesting
monologue riff set to scat music that sounds like Beat poetry of the early ‘60s.
Of course, Stoner guy sounds like late ‘60s.
There’s also a series
of commercials scattered throughout, such as a short almost Japanese-style mock
ad with Linnea Quigley (if you have to ask who that is, you’re in the wrong
genre), a couple of real come-ons for James Balsamo’s Big Book of Bad Jokes and
James Balsamo’s 100 Bad Joke Book, and a fake set of record collections
for James Balsamo’s Crude Christmas, Vol 1 and 2 with songs like “Oh
Christmas Pee”; JB proudly announces “over 1 copy sold.”
One of the
centerpieces is the serial “Death Cycle,” an ongoing multi-part story which starts
off as kind of a Dirty Harry (JB) vs. a Nazi drug gang, but continuing parts
focus much more on the gang, which is good because that’s where the interesting
characters are. JB would play coppers in latter films of his, so it’s good. Also
sequentialized “Romancing the Stoner,” a number of short clips of JB doing
stand-up comedy in New York clubs.
While “Party Crasher”
is a bit of a WTF about a killer robot badger, there are some pieces
that work really well, such as “It Came from the Microwave” which is a spoof of
the Zuni doll segment of Trilogy of Terror (1975). Two among my faves
were an untitled piece about a woman in emotional pain, and the results from
that (not a comedy), and “PMZ Hollywood,” an animated television segment on a former
child star turned werewolf that’s pretty damn funny.
Over the years, while JB’s
style has grown (even if his humor is still stuck in Middle School), there are
some consistencies that frequently tend to show up, such as, in no particular
order, Nazis, nudity, death metal, pot/stoners, and cameos by actors and musicians.
Now, there’s a couple
of thoughts about this kind of overview of his history, and I’m not sure what
is better: should it all be jumbled up like this, or should we have been
presented with it in chronological order, to keep track of the growth. Y’know
what, it really does not matter. I’m just glad JB released this material. Like
I said, it’s a bit of stuff and nonsense, but it’s definitely enjoyable all the
way through, even with some of the tripping over trying to find his style and
there sometimes not being a beginning, a middle or an end to a particular
short.
With all the growth, JB
still stays JB, and for that I’m grateful.
This looks brilliant!!!
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