The Boston Underground Film Festival is currently underway, and the Hassle‘s Kyle Amato and Oscar Goff are on the scene! Click here to read Oscar’s first dispatch, and keep watching the site for the remainder of the fest for the team’s continuing coverage.
THE SERPENT’S SKIN (dir. Alice Maio Mackay)
Like a lost episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Serpent’s Skin blends witchy escapades with knowing metaphor. Unlike Buffy (no disrespect), this film is actually, truly gay and trans, no obfuscation needed. Our lead is a young transwoman named Anna (Alexandra McVicker), recently liberated from her terrible hometown. In short order, she gets herself an apartment, a job, and a hot tattoo artist girlfriend named Gen (Avalon Fast). Gen has a secret, one Anna shares: supernatural abilities, ones that can be used to make the world a better place– or, at least, a better place for Gen and Anna. Mind tricks, magical flames, and telekinesis-aided lovemaking ensue. Of course, things would be boring if they stayed perfect. Unbeknownst to our heroes, a sinister force has emerged from the depths of Gen’s psyche, threatening their reality and all those who thrive within.
A movie like this feels like a breath of fresh air. Mackay, still only 21, has a laser-focused purpose to her filmmaking, but isn’t afraid to get messy. I’d love to see what she could do with a bigger budget, though the simple sets here work in her world’s favor. These characters have each other, but it’s a lonely world. Throw in some ‘90s UPN special effects, and you have a very special trans lesbian journey. (Kyle Amato)
OBSESSION (dir. Curry Barker)
At first blush, the premise of Curry Barker’s Obsession wouldn’t be out of place in a classic Goosebumps novel. In execution, however, it’s a far cry from the Scholastic book fair. Wimpy sadsack Bear (Michael Johnston) is nursing a hopeless, years-long crush on Nikki (Inde Navarrette), his devastatingly pretty and clever coworker at the music shop, but he’s too chickenshit to let her know how he feels. In desperation, he buys a “One-Wish Willow,” a hokey little magic-shop trinket which claims to grant the user a wish of their choice. After a particularly brutal friend-zoning, Bear snaps the twig and whispers “I wish Nikki loved me more than anyone on earth.” The change is instantaneous; the normally cool and collected Nikki rushes back to Bear’s car and asks if she can stay the night at his place. One thing leads to another, and soon the couple are, in the words of a confused friend, “like, super dating.” Of course, magic shop trinkets tend to come with fine print, and Bear quickly realizes he may not have thought this plan through.
Obsession is gleefully nasty pulp of the highest order. Bear is your classic Tales from the Crypt protagonist: an everyday schmuck who deals with his eminently relatable problems in the most disastrously selfish way possible, and spends the remainder of his story compounding his situation through increasingly poor decisions. Barker has a way with a suspense scene, hiding threats in the shadows and knowing exactly when to go in for the kill. The real story here, however, is Navarrette, who delivers one of the most fearlessly committed comic-horror performances in recent memory. In her sweeter moments, Nikki coos like an Instagram-perfect girlfriend, Navarrette effortlessly embodying every nauseatingly demonstrative couple you’ve ever sat across from in a restaurant. Then, when she snaps, she fucking snaps, Navarrette managing the hairpin turns into Evil Dead-style monstrosity using nothing but her voice (which can shift from whisper to scream faster than a Pixies song) and her wildly expressive face (in one scene, at the faintest hint of divided attention on Bear’s part, Navarrette delivers one of the funniest exaggerated frowns I’ve ever seen). The result falls somewhere between Isabelle Adjani in Possession and Patty Mullen in Frankenhooker, at once terrifyingly physical and shockingly funny. Obsession is a solid enough riff on codependency and incel-entitlement that it would have worked in any event, but Navarrette turns it into something truly special. If there’s any justice, we are watching the birth of a star. (Oscar Goff)
CRAMPS! A PERIOD PIECE (dir. Brooke H. Cellars)
The debilitating pain of periods is a world of drama still underused in cinema. Luckily, Brooke H. Cellars approaches the subject with campy charm, putting her struggles with endometriosis in a topsy-turvy technicolor world inspired by John Waters and the Gay Girls Riding Club. Agnes Applewhite (Lauren Kitchen) is a young woman with big dreams, eager to escape her domineering mother and sister. They’re trapped in the ‘50s, but a new job as a shampoo girl gives Agnes a found family who truly care for her in the form of a bubbly Satanist, an aggressive rockabilly girl, and a caring but tough drag queen named Martini Bear. Unfortunately, Agnes is still a woman in a world of unequal health care, and her menstrual issues are being ignored even as they take a turn for the violent. The story may get a bit repetitive to some, but I imagine that’s how it feels to be ignored by doctors while you’re suffering beyond belief. At least with Cramps, this is all happening in a funhouse mirror world where you can summon a physician with a blood oath in an attempt to exorcise a demon. This could become a future cathartic midnight classic for any woman who has felt Agnes’ pain and wishes she could cry in the arms of a drag queen. (KA)
The Boston Underground Film Festival continues @ Brattle Theatre and Coolidge Corner Theatre through Sunday, 3/22.
