Reviewed by: Pat Torfe

Directed by: Lou Vockell

Starring:

Randall Morris
Russell Hurley
Tim LaMance
Gerri Sutyak

Movie: 3 out of 4 beer mugs
DVD: 2 out of 4 beer mugs
Overall: 2 out of 4 beer mugs


WHAT'S IT ABOUT? A group of thugs pick the wrong building to hold up in with their schoolgirl hostage, as a drug-fueled vagrant calls the same building his home, and doesn’t take kindly to intruders. Spring cleaning, anyone?


IS IT A GOOD MOVIE? Cincinnati-based director Lou Vockell is a man after many horror fan hearts. Delving into the exploitation film genre and coming out with stuff reminiscent of many 70's classics, Vockell has been making quite a name for himself on the indie scene. With his previous effort, STALKING HAND: A SCARY MOVIE!, he won Best Comedy at the 2007 Cincinnati Horror Film Festival. Even before that, his work garnered the attention and praises of the likes of Joe Bob Briggs. So, how does his latest effort in VAGRANT do in comparison?

For starters, I have to say that Vockell certainly took the whole exploitation motif all the way with VAGRANT, right down to the film having a scratched and sepia look like you'd find in many 70's reels, which really adds a lot. Particularly at the beginning of the film, this look is coupled with appropriately ominous music, and makes for some tense moments that are made more suspenseful by the fact that you can't quite make out what's going on. Coupled with frantic cuts, shaky camera, missing footage and a few homages to TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE and HALLOWEEN, it's all very impressive.

Another nice thing about the film is the cast for the most part looks to be enjoying themselves, and it shows through the acting. Russell Hurley (Frankie) is a standout, playing up the stereotypical head honcho of the group, smoking a cigarette, spitting out orders and cleaning his gun for the next time. For the batsh*t insane ex-girlfriends types out there, there's Coco, played by Gerri Sutyak. Cheerleaders and convenience store clerks, beware! Tim LeMance as Weasel was okay, but he seemed to be having a bit of trouble at times being an agitated character averse to duty and obligation. A weasel, if you will.

The film isn't perfect, as with many low budget affairs. Having the whole exploitation look is great, but it tends to overpower the darker scenes, making things into an indiscernible brown smudge. Some effects are lacking in the fact that they aren't there. Head bangs onto counters that don't really touch, stabs that don't stab, slashes that don't slash, etc. It's a budget thing, I know, but it does take you out of the film at times.

I can see where Vockell was going with this, and I applaud the effort on his part and the actors. The balance of cheese and exploitation was a little lopsided at times, but for the most part, it's a fun little ditty that has a charm to it.


VIDEO / AUDIO Video: Despite the effort to make it look aged, the 1.33:1 fullscreen picture in my opinion still looks too good. Confusing, I know. This is a dark film, and contrast doesn't appear to be a concept, as much of the time we see brown blobs of people doing stuff. No colour bleeding or edge enhancement is here, which is good.

Audio: The Dolby Digital Stereo 2.0 track is hit or miss, with some spots being bang on with effects like glass shattering and footsteps, but other times the music overpowers the dialogue and makes it hard to hear, or at times the mike itself wasn't positioned very well, making some conversations feel like they're turning their backs to you. Otherwise, there's no distortion to speak of.


THE EXTRAS The screener disk I received didn't have anything in terms of extras, other than chapter stops (which are always nice).


LAST CALL A good effort that perhaps could've taken the 'less is more' approach when it comes to implementing the style of 70's era exploitation, VAGRANT is a fun little film showcasing suspense and tension that is often missed with some of its ilk. It'd be interesting to see what Vockell could do in the future given a bigger budget.


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The Hustler
Also This Issue
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Russell Hurley keeps his dream alive via The Vagrant
INTERVIEW BY JASON GARGANO









"Anything that you write bad about this is my fault," Russell Hurley says of his role as producer of The Vagrant. "Even if it didn't look like my fault, it was my fault."

There's no need for Hurley to be defensive. The Vagrant is pure B-movie mayhem, the type of sinister, blood-splattered spectacle that has been a late-night movie staple for decades. A Room with a View it's not, nor should it be held to the same stuffy standards.

The Vagrant's own director, Lou Vockell -- a Cincinnati-based filmmaker whose previous credits include Killer Sex Queens from Cyberspace and the Joe Bob Briggs-endorsed Planet of the Erotic Ape -- describes the film like this, playing up its supposedly "true story": "Hate, death, insanity and perversion are graphically and unrepentantly presented as we believe it truly happened. It would be surreal, if it weren't so disturbingly grim."

Despite Vockell's hyperbolic pimping of the genre's heightened tendencies, The Vagrant is actually more heist movie than gore-infested horror freakout.

Clearly influenced by such Quentin Tarantino fare as Reservoir Dogs and Grindhouse and a host of '70s exploitation and horror flicks, The Vagrant's simple story opens as a small crew hides out in an abandoned building until things cool down following a bank robbery. Not surprisingly, things don't go as planned.

Hurley plays Frankie, the gang's de facto leader who struggles to keep things together in the face of intra-crew squabbles and the mysterious presence of a drug-addled "vagrant" (played by Hurley's brother Randall Morris).

A native of tiny Buckeye Lake, Ohio, Hurley moved to Cincinnati in 2004 following stints in New York and Philadelphia, among other stops.

"I always wanted to be an actor but I never could seem to break into anything -- I couldn't get through the front door," Hurley says over beers at a downtown watering hole. "My first month down here I saw an ad in the paper for an open audition, and it said 'paid.' I did a lot of theater for free. I thought, 'I'd like to get paid just once.' "

The audition was for a small part in Vockell's The Stalking Hand. The role was eventually expanded to fit Hurely's outsized personality. They also ended up filming much of The Stalking Hand in the backyard of Hurley's home in Anderson Township -- a turnabout that highlighted his burgeoning talents as a wrangler of filmmaking necessities.

Hurley's experience on The Vagrant was similar: His role was eventually expanded as both an actor and first-time producer.

"After they cast me as the lead actor, the director quit because he was accepted into Frank Oz's puppet school out in Pennsylvania somewhere," he says. "So the whole thing fell apart."

After a period of limbo, Vockell took over The Vagrant's directorial reins -- another example of the fruits of Hurley's extended film-community network.

"If you need somebody, I can usually find them," Hurley says. "I'm a barber. The guys at work call me 'The Schmooze,' because I can schmooze anything from anybody."

Hurley, who has long supplemented his part-time acting gigs with full-time work as a barber, bought an old-school barbershop downtown soon after moving to Cincinnati. And he didn't hesitate to mine his familiarity with the area for The Vagrant -- it's almost entirely set in a decrepit abandoned building in Over-the-Rhine.

"One note to the people who are afraid to come downtown," he says, clearly annoyed by the neighborhood's notorious reputation, "in the whole time we were there, the biggest problem we had were on three separate occasions drunks staggered into the building and said, 'Hey, can I be in your movie.' That was it. I know stuff happens down there, but from what I've seen, if you're not looking to score dope or a hooker, you got nothing to worry about."

The Vagrant's screenwriter, Charlie Vargas, lives and works in Over-the-Rhine, which is the perfect locale for the story's gritty nature. Glimpses of the neighborhood's narrow, trash-strewn alleys and abandoned buildings abound, adding a layer of authenticity rarely achieved in such low-budget efforts.

Then there's the film's visual aesthetic. Sepia-toned and dirtied up ala the recent Grindhouse, The Vagrant's intimate, handheld camera work and disorienting stylistic flourishes evoke a long-lost home-video transmission from another era.

"If you go to Blockbuster or Hollywood Video, man, they get a lot of trash," Hurley says of likeminded B-movie fare. "Ours is good trash.

"The big difference between this and Grindhouse was $20 million," he says with only a slight hint of irony. "The difference between us and The Blair Witch Project was about $35,000. I've watched it (The Vagrant) about 35 times now, and generally I'm objective because I hate watching myself, but, hell, I thought it was better than The Blair Witch Project."

And what of the decision to go with the old-school grindhouse effect?

"The only argument was, 'Gee, nobody uses that.' And then all of the sudden one of our favorites comes out with a movie -- Quentin Tarantino's Grindhouse!

"I personally think he's spying on our production meetings," Hurley says, laughing.

While he enjoys the camaraderie and craftiness inherent in such low-budget moviemaking, Hurley can't help but dream of what might be.

"It's fun like buying a $100,000,000 lottery ticket," he says. "It's fun thinking what could happen if one of these films breaks through."

Moments later his expectations are tempered.

"People ask me all the time if I want to break into pictures and be a big star and go to Hollywood?" he says. "F#$@ no -- I want to be a big barber. I want people to walk by and have people go, "Hey, that barber, that's the guy that was in that movie. What was that movie? I don't remember, but he was scary.' " ©

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