Directed by Corey McAbee of the rock/performance/art/film group The Billy Nayer Show, THE AMERICAN ASTRONAUT is a cross-pollinated pastiche that plays as a science fiction/musical/comedy/western/road movie shot in beautiful black and white, with occasional low-tech animation, retro-futuristic art direction, and chocked full of catchy tunes, quirky characters, and pure originality.

Like THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW, HEDWIG is a gender-bending rock ‘n’ roll musical comedy, based on a stage play about a transvestite.

The film combines a lot of the right elements to make it a good midnight movie: a sci-fi, post-apocalyptic setting, a road movie plot, kung fu action, and rock ‘n’ roll. It’s sort of surprising this film wasn’t a comic book first!

After more than a decade, John Paizs followed up his underated, must-see, classic D.I.Y. film, CRIME WAVE (AKA THE BIG CRIMEWAVE – see CdC #10) with this absurd comedy.

When vicious vampires begin killing the lesbians of Ottawa, the Catholic Church turns to their top man, Jesus Christ (Phil Caracas), to end their rein of terror.

Avoid this version at all costs. Region free NTSC versions with English subtitles are readily available via innumerable web vendors. Shun this (and any other) Miramax re-cuts like the plague.

Filmmaker Becca Campbell wants to find out what makes these exhibitionists tick. Who are the people on the other end of the keyboard?

Playing like a THIS IS SPINAL TAP for the indie movie crowd, Bowman’s film is a witty farce which undoubtedly inspired films like LIVING IN OBLIVION, THE INDEPENDENT, HOLLYWOOD NORTH, and THE REAL OLD TESTAMENT.

Sadly, BATTLE ROYALE seems destined to never find widespread distribution in the United States. Rather, the premise of the film will keep it, and any discussions surrounding it, to a limited audience.

Playing on the universal fear of dentists, Gabriele Salvatores’s DENTI revolves around Antonio (Sergio Rubini).

When Friday night rolls around and there’s little to do except attend a kegger down on Frat Row, the dangers of being a bored college student never make themselves more apparent.

One of the strangest releases of the last decade, Michele Soavi’s DELLAMORTE, DELLAMORE opened in April of 1996 as CEMETERY MAN.

Armed with a deadly accurate belt and an odd vocabulary, Pootie speaks like a hip-hop version of Jodie Foster in NELL.

A delightful and disturbing film, UZUMAKI is skillfully directed by Higuchinsky who does a brilliant job keeping everything in UZUMAKI off kilter as things threaten to spin out of control.

King’s inspiration for TREASURE ISLAND came from Ewen Montagu’s 1954 novel The Man Who Never Was (ISBN: 1557504482).

Considering how much praise the film DELICATESSEN has received over the years, it is surprising TUVALU hasn’t found more recognition.

THE ITEM, reflects Clark’s personality in its kinetic, balls out, over-the-top mirth and mayhem. Everything in THE ITEM has been kicked up to the nth degree.

The most recent film to stem from an unproduced Ed Wood script, Aris Iliopulos’s 1998 film I WOKE UP EARLY THE DAY I DIED is an amalgam of Wood’s favorite themes.

The beauty of D.I.Y., independent cinema comes when a filmmaker, having no one to answer to, makes a film for his own amusement without any care whether an audience will get it.