Intensely Independent: The Micro-Budget Films of Blake Eckard could easily be titled Fucked-Up Families… but then you wouldn’t know what you are buying exactly… but it would be apt regardless…
Things kick off with 2011’s Bubba Moon Face…
The ironically named Horton Bucks (Tyler Messner) is a penniless mother fucker who blows back into his hometown due to his mother’s demise… and there he’ll stay since he can’t afford repairs for his junky jalopy… and he’ll be staying at his brother Stanton’s (Joe Hammerstone) house located in the woods because hotel rooms cost money… it’s a complete ouroboros really…
Now these two aren’t great at funeral planning, which results in the day ending at a local watering-hole where Horton encounters his (formerly jail-bait) ex… drinks and mistakes ensue, Hunter wakes up with a new baby… supposedly Stanton’s conceived with a woman named Sabetha (Sylvia Geiger) who wants absolutely zero to do with the kid… apparently neither does Stanton as he subsequently splits the scene right quick.
And to make matters worse, our unwilling new Papa has to deal with his own druggie daddy, Gus (Joe Hanrahan), who in a real “Like Father, Like Son” twist also likes ‘em on the younger side.
Things spiral ever downward…
Shit doesn’t go much better for the fine folks in feature number 2; 2017’s Coyotes Kill for Fun…
Bev (Arianne Martin) is a mechanic by trade, but wait there’s more… she’s also shacked up with her abusive-as-fuck boyfriend by the name of Larry (Todd Morten).
Because of Laceration Larry, Bev wants to exit that romance post haste, so she gets a few friends to help her out in that department; her kid’s babysitter, Sue Anne (Roxanne Rogers), and her workplace Romeo, Cliff (Tyler Messner)… but this terrific trio has their plans put on hold thanks to the violent intrusion of a stranger from Larry’s shady-ass past…
Look, while these two flicks are not horror per se, they are nevertheless full of enough grimy, gloomy bad times that you’ll feel like it may be an impossible task to scrape the ick off after viewing… and that is an admirable feat indeed!
Writer/director Blake Eckard has crafted bleak tales, shot them authentically (often in a documentary fashion), and presented them as believable slices of life in rural, poverty-stricken American small towns (and I, and I bet quite a few of you, know exactly what that life is like… right down to some of these characters and their plights feeling very, very familiar). It’s an amazingly powerful experience to say the least.
This is punk rock film-making at it’s finest… crafting relevant narratives (and dark ones at that), filling as many roles as possible (Eckard also served as producer and editor here as well), casting family as needed… then grabbing whatever camera was affordable and getting shit done… and done well… with nary a fuck given to the conventions of Hollywood’s product… it’s as refreshing as it is often disturbing.
And speaking of those cameras, they often provide a rough image which adds immeasurably to the aesthetics and atmosphere.
To enhance the viewing experience of the above we get a handful of special features that illustrate how these productions came to be including a commentary track for Bubba Moon Face, an interview with Blake Eckard (conducted by indie filmmaker Jon Jost), and a booklet featuring liner notes for the films at hand.
Raw, real, and completely authentic (in style), Intensely Independent: The Micro-Budget Films of Blake Eckard is a desperate journey to a darker side of life that shouldn’t be missed by adventurous lovers of D.I.Y. film-making!
