Kicking off its 17th year, the annual Boston Underground Film Festival boasts a terrific, confrontational lineup this March 2015. As winter finally ends, the fest invites us on the Northeast to get out of the house and into a weird headspace, and though unable to attend, Ive got serious recommendations for those in the Boston area.
BUFF 17 launched Wednesday, March 25th with Astron 6s delirious giallo pastiche and parody, The Editor and Duke Mitchells mad movie Gone With the Pope, rediscovered and newly completed from surviving film elements by celebrated editor and Grindhouse Releasing co-founder Bob Murawski. Its only crazier from there.
The 17th Edition of Boston Underground Film Festival is highlighted by primal, provocative fare, effectively acting as a showcase for just how indie and foreign filmmakers are touching the void of our anxieties, both within self and without. The lineup is shaped by 2014 fest favorites, as well as freshly premiered titles youll be hearing a great deal about the rest of this year. Also, shorts; shorts galore. BUFF puts a tremendous emphasis on new, bursts of talent with six shorts programs over the fests five days and thats not to mention those paired with and preceding feature screenings. Youll certainly want to be in attendance for Ben Steiners amazing The Stomach, for instance.
Here are my five must-sees of this weekends Boston Underground Film Festival. For the full lineup, schedule and tickets, visit Boston Underground. I hope you make it out to the Brattle.
BUFF 17
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BUFF 17 #1
Excess Flesh, Screening March 26th at 9:55 p.m.
This SXSW World Premiere is utterly aggressive, hateful Body Image horror about a young woman both enamored and furious with her self-obsessed model roommate. Her self-hatred and struggle with food manifests and forces their relationship to the extreme. From my review: “Displeased and displeasing, repulsive and repugnant, Excess Flesh is consuming vitriol and spewing it back in our faces. Director Patrick Kennelly’s feature debut is stylish on a low budget, boasting a synth score from Jonathan Snipes (Room 237, Starry Eyes) and slick, slo-mo visual palette, which he then stuffs with graphic eating, and sadistic and self-destructive behavior. This is a film as informed by the veneer of Los Angeles as it is sickened by it; a layer cake of aggression, shame and madness. It’s pretty exhilarating.”
The film screens with two shorts, Izzy Lee’s Postpartum and Olivia Saperstein’s Recipe, both of which also engage in the extreme how societal pressures bubble as violent obsession; their titles can likely tease you as to how.
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BUFF 17 #2
We Are Still Here, Screening March 28th at 6:45 p.m.
Another fresh import from a SXSW debut, Ted Geoghegan’s We Are Still Here was made for Boston screens. The snowy, New England folk horror is refreshing in its familiar setups, featuring middle aged characters that make for a more somber, weighty affair and providing its ghosts with fiery agency. These are not translucent specters, but charred, murderous apparition. The film’s weirdo atmosphere (thanks to beautiful landscape and great work from Barbara Crampton) then builds to reveal its Fulci-esque self, with a tightly orchestrated climactic massacre. See my full review here.
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BUFF 17 #3
Bag Boy Lover Boy, Screening March 28th at 9:15 p.m.
If you miss the scuzzy feel of New York City horror, dark satire Bag Boy Lover Boy is likely for you. The low budget affair makes a case that the downtown streets are as shitty and hellish as they’ve ever been. Hot dog vendor Albert is exploited and teased by a Soho photographer, whose fake promises and negging in fetishistic photo shoots lead the deranged young man to act on violent impulse and misogynistic entitlement. It’s both unsettling and darkly funny, recalling unhinged urban atmosphere of Ferrara, Henenlotter and Richard Kern.
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BUFF 17 #4
Der Samurai, Screening March 29 at 6:45 p.m.
This German favorite from the fest circuit is actually of a piece with accompanying BUFF titles about something raging within. A small town cop is both on the hunt of and allured by a wedding dress-wearing and katana-wielding maniac over the course of one, long night. Queer, dreamy and concerned with the harmful effects of repression and all that boils beneath it, Der Samurai is best experienced cold, simply following its trail.
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BUFF 17 #5
Goodnight Mommy, Screening March 29 at 8:30 p.m.
This Austrian nightmare is art-horror heaven. Directors Severn Fiala and Veronika Franz, the latter of which co-wrote Ulrich Seidl’s Paradise trilogy, concoct an intimate, horrifying affair of twin boys paranoid and questioning of their mother after an accident has necessitated cosmetic surgery for her. The filmmakers create a clinical, entirely unwarm atmosphere in this stunning home, artfully restricting the children and constricting the audience until an unbelievable end and maybe the most primal scream I’ve ever heard onscreen.
