The final day of the Boston Underground Film Festival features five screenings and a ceremony awarding its coveted black-bunny Bacchus trophy to worthy participants. At noon, Sophia Cacciola and Michael J. Epstein’s Magnetic (2015) joins a cohort of recent independent sci-fi/horror films (such as Beyond the Black Rainbow) that wrap themselves in a crisp, lovingly rendered early-‘80s aesthetic featuring cultish antics, psychokinesis, and sleekly gelid electronic soundtracks. Afternoon screenings include the mordantly amusing shorts program Laugh Track and the East Coast premiere of 20 Years of Madness (2015), a doc examining creative collaboration and personal tribulation via the belated reunion of a misfit group of Detroit filmmakers. Der Samurai (2014) bends genres, genders, and tempered steel with a nominal tale of werewolves, police work, head-rolling small-town mayhem, and a long white dress. Sharp compositions and sharper cheekbones abound in festival closer Goodnight Mommy (2014), an über-Bauhaus rendering of isolated-family paranoia and body horror.
Now in its 17th year, the BUFF—germinated by founder and local cineaste-guru David Kleiler—is wrapping up a fourth consecutive run at Cambridge’s historic Brattle Theatre. Both festival and venue are duly registered, stalwartly maintained not-for-profit institutions that thrive with the attendance and support of Boston’s discerning filmgoers. Check their schedules at www.bostonunderground.org and www.brattlefilm.org. —Guinevere Gorllewin
Boston Underground Film Festival 17
The Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
Sunday, March 29, 2015:
Magnetic – 12pm
Laugh Track – 2:15pm
20 Years of Madness – 4:30pm
Der Samurai – 6:45pm
Goodnight Mommy – 8:30pm
$11 per screening
All Ages — Most material not appropriate for children
(unless otherwise indicated) © 2019