Love assumes many forms, but even the most open-minded among us don’t apply the “love is love” principle universally. This week will see the arrival of already-controversial The Drama, in which Zendaya and Robert Pattinson play a couple about to be married who make the mistake of playing “What’s the worst thing you ever did?”—unlocking intel that for most folk would be a serious deal-breaker. (The offscreen debate revolves around a plot point, derived from our era’s all-too-frequent headlines, some think is in very bad taste.)
Unfortunately, it didn’t advance-screen by our deadline. However, there are a clutch of other new movies in which love finds an object that you might well personally draw the line at. Space aliens, dead people, witches, mermaids and more are amongthe amour magnets in these determinedly offbeat releases.
Probably the most inspired among them is Touch Me, which bypassed Bay Area theaters in its theatrical release last week but hits On Demand and Digital platforms this Thu/2. Joey (Olivia Taylor Dudley) is a glam trainwreck of the type whose PTSD has curdled into all-around misanthropy, as well as depression and anxiety. After things with a boyfriend get a little too intense, she runs to the shelter of gay BFF Craig (Jordan Gavaris), her perfect match in co-dependent self-pity. When a plumbing issue renders his home temporarily uninhabitable, however, she semi-reluctantly crawls back to that boyfriend, Craig in tow.
Brian (Lou Taylor Pucci) is a ponytailed New Agey hunk with an intimidating housekeeper (Marlene Forte as Laura), and some very peculiar ideas/habits. On the plus side, he’s got a luxe house in the country, is apparently off-the-charts “good in bed,” and has a healing touch that is addictive to just such neurotics as his new guests. Arguable minuses include the fact that he’s from outer space—non-hunky physical forms assumed encompass tentacles—and may on occasion “devour” humans. Well, nobody’s perfect. Complications arise when both Joey and Craig succumb to his dangerous charms.
Writer-director Addison Heimann’s prior feature Hypochondriac was a thematically overlapping mix of mental health issues and surreal spins on genre tropes. It was impressively ambitious, but a bit of a hot mess; Touch Me hangs together much more coherently, however outre its content gets. While at first you may wonder how long you’ll be able to stomach these extremely annoying (non-alien) protagonists, things really elevate once the action moves to Chez Brian—the mix of barbed comedy, fantasy, quease (yes there is “cross-species sex”), gore and more really gels, heightened by such unexpected extras as kitschy split-screen effects and kitschier hiphop dance interludes. Pucci, whom I mostly remember as an adolescent two decades ago in indies Thumbsucker and The Chumscrubber (he’s mostly done TV of late), is terrific in a turn that is constantly surprising yet never goes hammily over-the-top. Brian may be a monster, but… well, some monsters are hard to resist nonetheless.
In a not-dissimilar vein of grotesque humor crossed with a midnight-movie take on fairy tale romance, there’s Mermaid from another writer-director, Tyler Cornack. His 2020 Butt Boy was one highly questionable idea extended to feature length with much more success than you’d expect, managing to be both droll and outrageous. This effort similarly revolves around an all-around loser who finds himself in extraordinary circumstances. Doug (Johnny Pemberton) is a listless sad sack who only has a car, a boat and a home because his late father left those behind. He has a daughter who barely tolerates him, by a one-night-stand who despises him. And at the start here he’s fired from his already-pathetic job as aquarium keeper at a Central Florida strip club because he’s “getting pretty weird,” creeping the dancers out. Deciding to end it all, he motors into the Gulf, only to spy something floating in the distance.
Suffice it to say that Doug, who desperately needs somebody, or something, to love but is unlikely to attract such, brings home and nurses back to health the titular creature—which is not at all like Disney or Hans Christian Andersen’s Little Mermaid. She is, in fact, a very scary-looking, scary-acting wild thing. Regardless, soon Doug is confessing “You’re makin’ me feel some things.” His guest is a secret that is hard to keep under wraps, however, attracting unwanted attention from various horrified or fascinated parties including Ron (Robert Patrick), the gangster type who shows up to occasionally terrorize Doug over an apparent debt. Between projectile-vomiting at a children’s birthday party and carnivorous mayhem, this would-be romance is surely doomed.
Billed in opening text as “A love letter to Florida,” Mermaid is that in the sense that grungy The Florida Project and satirist Carl Hiassen’s novels can be termed likewise—with the addition of snarky, bloody fantastical elements. While not everything here works (veteran Patrick makes a good villain, but he’s really over-indulged in some scenes), the sum is an eccentric original that finds some reluctant redemption in the accelerated stupidity of Trumpsville, USA, circa Right Now. Mermaid is screening as a “sneak preview” (with actor Pemberton in person) on Wed/8 and Thu/9 at SF’s Alamo Drafthouse New Mission—more info here), with possible further local dates/venues as yet TBA.
The Canadian Dead Lover, which opens at SF’s Balboa Theater Fri/8, is another tale of ill-starred yearning by a social pariah. In a vaguely Victorian-era setting entirely contrived on black-box stages for a fringe-theater feel a la Charles Ludlam, Gravedigger (director Grace Glowicki) suffers a lonely existence, as the unpleasant odors she’s exposed to each day tend to repel fellow living humans. That is, until she meets a dandy (co-writer Ben Petrie) whose perverse tastes are a match—“I want to lick your stink,” he informs her. This idyll ends, however, when the lover drowns at sea. Our heroine won’t give up so easily, attempting to Frankenstein a replacement to satisfy her emotional and other needs.
In various ways reminiscent of Sweeney Todd, 1960s grade-Z horror schlockmeister Andy Milligan, plus drag-camp-stravaganzas like Vegas in Space and Desperate Remedies, Dead Lover goes admirably far out on a particular limb. But it gets there immediately, then goes on for 95 minutes that grow a bit tedious and repetitious. The four performers (all but Glowicki playing multiple roles) are strenuously over-the-top throughout, making for too much of a good thing that might’ve worked better as a short. Still, it has an undeniable dedication to its own idiosyncrasies. Which at the Balboa will include some shows featuring “Stink-O-Vision,” wherein patrons get their very own scratch-and-sniff card to lend the film an added olfactory dimension a la John Waters’ Polyester.
Also a little overheated yet undernourished is The Serpent’s Skin, the latest from trans Australian director Alice Maio Mackay. This “supernatural queer romance thriller,” an homage to the likes of both Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Gregg Araki’s edgy indies, has the somewhat inexpressive Alexandra McVicker as Anna, who moves to the big city to escape the prejudices of her “shithole town.” Getting a job at a record store, she discovers hitherto unknown powers (think Carrie meets Scanners) when thwarting an armed robber. This attracts the attention of similarly gifted Gen (Avalon Fast), with whom she becomes deeply involved—though not before a fling with male hottie Danny (Jordan Dulieu). Problems arise when one person in this triangle becomes possessed by a demon.
I was not a fan of Mackay’s prior features like So Vam and Carnage for Christmas. They seemed…well, immature, the work of someone who’s just been very excitedly introduced to concepts like “camp.” But that’s to be expected, since Skin is her sixth such effort—and she’s still only 21, having started very young. Her style is getting more refined, helped by candy-colored lighting effects and soundtracked songs by H6LLB6ND6R (the band of the U.S. indie-horror-producing Adams family). The acting here is uneven, and the direction still lacks much grasp on suspense, setpieces or pacing. But Mackay merits credit for having the chutzpah to acquire her skillset in public, and she is definitely getting better. She will appear live when the film opens at SF’s Roxie this Thurs/2; it is also scheduled for Alamo Drafthouse New Mission on April 11.
Another coming-of-age tale touched by the uncanny (and like Skin, shot in 16mm) is The Outcasts, a 1982 Irish feature that was barely seen anywhere at the time. From writer-director Robert Wynne-Simmons, who also wrote the earlier folk-horror classic Blood on Satan’s Claw, it’s more of a rustic drama ambiguously edging into the occult. By virtue of being “different,” club-footed Maura (Mary Ryan) is variably tolerated and bullied in her backwards village circa 1810, getting little sympathy even from her own fickle sisters and brutal father.
Half-fearful, half-goading, the local children call her a witch—planting a seed that grows when she meets a mysterious trickster called Scarf Michael (Mick Lally). Is he a man, a ghost, or both? This handsome, atmospheric if sometimes meandering tale may be less family-friendly, but it’s got a fable-like quality akin to later Irish-mythology-derived indie hit The Secret of Roan Inish, which also featured actor Lally. It’s available in a 2K restoration on streaming platform Ovid as of Fri/3.
Also a genre-defying, magical-realist fable of sorts is the Serbian Sun Never Again, which arrives on arthouse streamer Film Movement the same day. Everyone is leaving a remote hamlet, driven away by the earth-shaking noise and toxic pollution generated from a multinational corporation’s strip-mining in this once-tranquil place. Crusty Vid (Dusan Jovic) refuses to be bought out, despite wife Ada’s (Natasa Markovic) pleas on behalf of their son Dule (Rastko Racic).
That child’s flights of fantasy—whose depiction encompass discreet animation elements—gradually leaven the whole of this enigmatic, often visually arresting short (72 minutes) feature, which feels curiosity timeless despite its up-to-the-moment environmental themes. Unlike all the films above, Sun has no romantic element. But this movie is about a different kind of love, the one you feel towards a homeland you cannot bring yourself to leave.
