SLACKER (1990)

Filmed in an almost documentary style, SLACKER is the story of a lonely movie camera that wanders around Austin, TX in search of an interesting conversation. Sadly, the camera never finds anybody worth listening to and finally, at the end, an unnamed person picks up the camera and tossed it off Mount Bonnell…where mostly likely it landed on somebody breaking into a car in the parking lot.

From a filmmaking point of view, SLACKER is very interesting. I enjoyed the seamless way the camera glided from person to person. But from an entertainment point of view, I was floundering. First off, every goddamn conversation sounded like the last one! I mean, I’ve lived in this town since the mid-Pleistocene epoch, so I know the whole fucking place is full of mindless fart-sniffers too scared to have an opinion, but this is a work of fiction! Make some shit up! Whatever, it’s not my movie, maybe the writer intended everybody to sound the same and be boring! Whiff!!! If that’s the case, I’m sorry, the joke went right over my exceedingly handsome head. And speaking of handsome skulls, ol’ Jason Voorhees’ skull was fucking wild in that Crystal Lake series. They did that boi wrong, but it didn’t fucking matter since 87% of the show was about his mom and not Jason. Nobody wants a backstory on Jason and definitely not a backstory on his mom. I just want to see Jason kill! That’s literally it. Jason killing. I just want an endless TV show of Jason killing. In a summer camp, every fucking episode. Just over and over and over. No reason given. Just Jason murdering people, but no animals. People only. Lots of nudity, lots of people goofing off while Jason kills their friends.

Oh yeah, SLACKER. It’s okay. I can see historians, filmmakers and oldheads from ATX enjoying it, but younger movie watchers would probably turn it off within 5 minutes. It would be interesting to see a follow-up made nowadays. Then again I could just stand on Red River and listen to boring people talk and imagine I'm in Slacker 2.

IDILA (2015)

Four boring people go into the forest to take boring pictures. They’re attacked by two murderous (and boring) moonshiners. Fin.

IDILA (aka IDYLL, aka KILLBILLIES, aka IDYLLE) is one of those movies where you’re curious as to why it was even made. Like, seriously, what was the point? It adds nothing to the genre. The actors all look bored. There are no fresh ideas or different takes on the basic backwoods inbred family slasher template. The only unique thing about IDILA is it’s filmed in Slovenia, which is cool and the forest itself looks beautiful, but why go through the trouble of making a horror movie if you’re going to make it as bland as humanly possible? Very little blood, boring kills, poor indoor lighting, weird editing, zero nudity, forgettable characters, zero tension, slow pacing and a story that was so empty that I doubt there was even a proper script at all.

IDILA isn’t a bad movie as much at it’s a non-movie. Skip it. Or watch it, I don't give a fuck what you do.