Despite our relative proximity to LA, the epicenter of the film industry, filmmaking in Las Vegas hasn't exactly flourished. Sure, big productions come here to shoot the Strip or the desert, but homegrown feature films are much rarer. The filmmaking community has been gradually growing, however, and these five features have all premiered in recent months, some on DVD and some on actual big screens. Here's a look at how they measure up.
THE INDIE PENDANT
Director: Kelly Schwarze
Stars: Nick Ernst, Rusty Meyers, Joy Highsmith
The Indie Pendant is the third feature film from Schwarze and Vision Dynamics Entertainment, a local production company that also does work on commercials and music videos. The company's obvious resources mean that the production values are, for the most part, professional, and Schwarze's fluid and accomplished camera work (he's also the cinematographer) is far and away the film's best quality.
Unfortunately, the problems with The Indie Pendant appear to have started long before any cameras started rolling, with Edward Dentzel's smug and incoherent screenplay, which takes annoyingly obvious (and often inaccurate) potshots at Hollywood while forwarding a plot riddled with holes.
The film follows aspiring independent filmmaker Kevin Sanderson (Ernst), who has his script for a film called The Indie Pendant stolen by hotshot producer Robert Wynn (Meyers). The pissed-off Kevin then schemes with his buddies to steal the print for the resulting film's premiere, and then to sabotage the movie by threatening to distribute it on the Internet.
Kevin's master plan makes no sense within the context of the way the movie business actually works or the way a real person might go about addressing an injustice, but the movie just barrels along as if everything is normal. Ernst is bland as the lead, although some of the supporting players are serviceable. The worst thing is how such a mess of a film is consistently so self-satisfied in the way it's supposedly sticking it to The Man. The Man is far too busy making movies that people want to see to be bothered by this whining.
The Indie Pendant premiered at the Brenden Theatres in the Palms in July 2005 and will have several showings this year at the Clark County Library. For more info, visit www.vdefilms.com.
WAR OF THE PLANETS
Director: Mike Conway
Stars: Tim Daley, Jason Hall, Sheila Conway.
The most successful local filmmaker (not that that's saying much right now), Conway parlayed his low-budget sci-fi film into a distribution deal with Lionsgate, one of the largest independent studios in the movie business. It's strange, then, to see that War of the Planets (in which no planets engage in any actual warfare) is so unremarkable, an achievement only for the chutzpah of attempting to produce a movie on the level of Alien with a budget on the level of a graduation video.
The film follows a group of 12 astronauts who crash land on a desolate planet and are menaced by a vicious creature (also known as a dude in a gorilla suit) and trapped in a giant glass dome (the original title, before Lionsgate changed it, was the much more appropriate Terrarium) by sadistic aliens. Conway does a good job of working within his limitations to create the appearance of an alien world, and the crude computer effects are marginally passable.
But the stiff acting is terrible, yet not campy enough to be entertaining, and Conway has trouble building tension without revealing more than his budget allows. By the end, the plot degenerates into sheer confusion, and the audience is left as lost as the astronauts.
War of the Planets is available on DVD at major retail and online outlets, including Blockbuster, Netflix, Hollywood Video and Amazon. For more info, visit
www.terrariumthemovie.com.
ONE STEP BEHIND
Directors: Eric Weiss, Michael Valentin
Stars: Eric Weiss, Michael Valentin, Bobbi Jo Rogers, Scott Brown.
It's not easy to make a movie, even a really bad one, so I'd first like to acknowledge that a lot of time and hard work most likely went into the creation of One Step Behind. Writer-director-stars Weiss and Valentin deserve to be commended for their perseverance in completing a 100-minute feature film. That said, the time I spent watching One Step Behind was 100 of the most painful minutes of my life. Not only is One Step Behind haphazard, annoying and painfully unfunny, but it also fails to pass the most basic standards of filmmaking competence.
There are completely static shots that nevertheless shift in and out of focus. There are numerous nighttime outdoor scenes with no lighting. There are actors glancing at the camera in the middle of speaking their lines. There are scenes in which the sound and the lighting don't match up between shots. There is one location that has the beeping of a smoke alarm with a low battery in the background of every scene that takes place there. There is a three-minute sequence of a hard-rock band playing one of their songs that has nothing to do with the plot or any of the characters.
There's also a story about two friends (played by Weiss and Valentin) looking for love and meaning in their lives while being stalked by guys dressed as Mexican wrestlers. It sounds funny and appealing, but somehow even the goofy elements end up plodding and irritating, and the tone is radically inconsistent. At least the soundtrack, featuring local bands including Self-Drown, the lucky subjects of the mid-film music video, is pretty decent.
One Step Behind is available on DVD at Cash For Chaos and Zia Record Exchange. For more info, visit
www.myspace.com/pcpfilms.
EYES OF THE CHAMELEON
Director: Ron Atkins
Stars: Ann Teal, Danny Countess, Bobby Howard.
Sometimes, the key to making a successful low-budget movie is lowering your ambitions. It's doubtful that you'll be able to make a Citizen Kane-level epic on your shoestring budget, so it's better to shoot for something you can achieve. Atkins successfully does that with Eyes of the Chameleon, which clearly understands the two B's of low-budget horror: blood and boobs. Both are present in generous amounts in Eyes, a convoluted and often nonsensical thriller with plenty of gore and gratuitous nudity.
Teal (who also produced and cowrote) plays Sara, a bartender with issues whose friends are slowly being knocked off by a serial killer. She's also either cursed or just really, really cranky, prone to snapping at her coworkers and having sex with her boyfriend's brother. Plus, lots of people get stabbed.
Eyes isn't exactly sophisticated, and about halfway through you have to give up on the plot making any sense. It's not really scary, either, but Teal is an accomplished screamer and the buckets of blood are deployed liberally. The production values make the film watchable without getting in the way, and fans of cheapo horror will probably find the whole thing a decent way to pass 80 minutes. Everyone else will want to turn their eyes elsewhere.
Eyes of the Chameleon premiered at the Tropicana Cinemas in January and will have more screenings scheduled soon. For more info, visit
www.eyescreamproductions.com.
GHOST ADVENTURES
Directors: Zak Bagans, Nick Groff
Stars: Zak Bagans, Nick Groff, Aaron Goodwin.
It's probably easier to make a documentary on a low budget than a narrative feature, especially since digital video makes it easy to shoot footage almost anywhere. Bagans and Groff take advantage of this with Ghost Adventures, bringing their small portable cameras into haunted hotels, saloons and cemeteries in rural Nevada in an attempt to connect with the supernatural.
Although they traveled all over the state, the film focuses on their efforts in Virginia City and at the Goldfield Hotel. Both are well-known and well-documented sites of hauntings, and the film even mentions Goldfield's inclusion in a Fox special about the world's scariest places. What sets Ghost Adventures apart is Bagans' and Groff's enthusiasm for putting themselves right in the thick of things, practically taunting the spirits to elicit some sort of response. They lock themselves in the Goldfield Hotel overnight in the film's centerpiece, and the segment that proves the most convincing about the existence of the supernatural.
Whether or not you believe in ghosts, the film does a good job of presenting the history behind the stories and conveying a flavor of life in the small towns. The voluble Bagans, who narrates and does most of the talking in the investigations, can get a little grating, and at times the action degenerates into an endless series of "What was that?" and "Did you hear that?"
The production values are professional but not so slick as to make the events look fake. The main problem is that the ghost-hunting process quickly becomes tedious, and a feature-length film is more than the material calls for. Pared down to about half its length, Ghost Adventures could be a perfect Travel Channel special.
Ghost Adventures will have public screenings and a DVD release in the near future. For more info, visit
www.4reelproductions.net.