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EYECRAVEDVD - AUG. 2007
Now Playing - HELEN 2 PAY
By A.R. HOWERTON a.k.a. Axel
Read Article OnlineHELEN 2 PAY
Starring Alexia Anastasio, Noel Francomano, James Taffurelli and Lisa Fox
Directed by Kevin Sean Michaels
Alexia Anastasio sounds her barbaric yawp
This is a little festival screener disc I picked up in San Diego. It is a short film (about 15 minutes long) starring, co-written and edited by young ingenue/auteur Alexia Anastasio and directed by VAMPIRA: THE MOVIE helmer Kevin Sean Michaels.
Anastasio is an actress, artist, editor, gal-about-town and a filmmaker in her own right. She is also active in the festival and workshop community in her native state of New York. She often works with the Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington, NY and has even founded her own film festival in the Camp Festival.
The film itself is fairly simple. A young woman named Amy returns from an educational trip to Haiti and runs into her old High School nemesis, a brazen, obnoxious loudmouth named Helen. Helen, and her equally nasty boyfriend "J-Bear", corner Amy at a movie theatre, bullying and harassing her until she gives Helen her necklace (an artifact from her trip to Haiti…). Much original recipe zombie fun ensues. And by original recipe, I mean the true origin of the word "zombie" - which denoted a form of mind-control used in the practice of Voodoo, which would turn people into mindless slaves, not walking, brain-hungry, flesh tearing undead…
Like most super-low-budget shorts, this plays more like a film-school assignment than a polished feature, but thats what this would appear to be, an experiment, a practice run, a warm-up sprint before the big race, and the stars, and director Michaels, seem to be having a good time with it. It’s a bebop riff on three bars of an old standard.
The acting may seem a little overblown, but there is precious little time in a 15-minute short to subtly define character, it all has to come fast and hard. Noel Francomano (another B ingenue on her way up) gives Helen a loudmouthed bitch bent that immediately sets the character and makes you understand the motivation of the piece in about 10 seconds. Anastasio, by comparison, plays it quiet and meek, making the relationship between the two apparent from the get-go. What little change in character can be accomplished in the short running time is handled well and supported decently by the other two actors in the film.
There are strange little surrealistic additions and elements throughout, almost Lynchian in quality, like a Grandmother character (shot entirely from behind and played by Francomano as a nightmare nana…) who enters the room only to bellow insanely about drugs, headaches and feminine hygiene… These quick moments are accompanied by a laugh track, which disrupts the flow of the previous scenes, but in a strangely fitting way that evokes the satire of John Waters. It serves to bring you back to the realization that, hey! these people are having fun with the form, mixing it up and experimenting with film. It’s something you don’t see around much anymore, unless you are a film student or a lover of truly avante-garde underground cinema. I dug it.
I will say that this will not be for everyone. If you like your flicks fast, loose and full of action, gore and nastiness… you’re looking in the wrong bag of donuts. If you want a fun little 15-minute morsel of interesting play, and you have the opportunity to see it, give it a shot. I, for one, am very interested to see what else this young artiste has up her sleeve and I am certainly looking forward to seeing her in a longer feature where she can really show of her acting skills. Keep an eye out for her upcoming projects, like her all-female version of Oscar Wilde’s classic SALOME, now making the rounds on the festival circuit, including upcoming dates at the Rue Morgue Festival of Fear in Toronto!
Check out Alexia’s site and check out the MySpace site for SALOME, coming soon to a festival near you, then make way for a brave new talent rising up from the underground.
