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| Images courtesy of VHSHitfest |
Second to Saturn’s Core or Visual Vengeance in terms of home
video boutique labels unearthing and reissuing forgotten titles in lavish new
limited collector’s editions, boutique label VHSHitfest have made it their mission
to unearth, curate and publish rare forgotten oddities that defy easy categorization
or explanation. Most of them are films shot
on VHS tape or in the case of Brando Snider’s bizarre, indefinable 1997 weirdo The
Cornshukker, they’re shot on film but were ultimately finished and released
on tape. With The Cornshukker
which uses rather hasty but oddly appropriate lo-fi digital video effects,
seeing this one published in conjunction with OCN feels less like a feature and
more like an artifact excavated accidentally, treading a fine line between Eraserhead,
Creating Rem Lezar and the music video for Gary Young’s Plantman.
Running a mere sixty-three minutes and shot in 16mm
black-and-white 24fps with some noticeable digital effects layered over the
footage at 30fps giving a strange imbalance between the varying frame rates, The
Cornshukker follows a sentient mythical being (played by brother Jason
Snider) one with nature who looks a bit like an extraterrestrial except for his
bright white tie, slacks, button down shirt, high-heeled white shoes and Fester
Addams makeup with a bald head and cycles disguising his eyes. However, construction in the area and ongoing
urban expansion drives the nameless Cornshukker out of his domain and is
forced to cross paths with mysterious characters including but not limited to
eccentric locals and a bigot. All the
while our titular hero scarfs down corn like no tomorrow and at one point
urinates corn kernels. And there’s a
corn-topped pizza which our hero buys from, get this, Smegma Pizza.
A little do-it-yourself number that crams in a lot of
weirdness in its short running time though not nearly as manic and wild as the
equally short and strange Tetsuo: The Iron Man, this mean lean scrappy
little indie shot within three weeks in Fortville, Indiana is akin to a video
installation to throw on in a background to see the perplexed reactions of
passerby. A cacophony of strangeness out
in the open fields with a mixture of dark comedy and mere pure nonsense ala Mad
Mutilator or even Devil Story, The Cornshukker is the
equivalent of a midnight movie airing on the small screen. Produced, written and shot by Brando Snider
with homemade do-it-yourself video effects rendered rather hastily ala Creating
Rem Lezar, the film is less of a piece of narrative cinema or storytelling
than it is an exercise in experimental theater and homegrown peculiarity.
The first release from the ongoing VHSHitfest boutique
label, The Cornshukker isn’t exactly highbrow surrealism ala Lynch, Tsukamoto
or Jodorowsky but it does absolutely have a regional homegrown feel to its
strangeness. The kind of do-it-yourself
mindblower that can only happen outside of a studio or even independent film
system and can only be found by the curators of VHSHitfest scouring the
landscape of magnetic tapes in search of unique pieces that don’t exactly fit
the mold. The blu-ray disc of this film,
previously lost until rediscovery, comes fairly stacked with extras including
an audio commentary, newly conducted interview and music video. Akin to a late-night Adult Swim film but with
an earnestness that network could never achieve, The Cornshukker is one
odd duck of a mythical horror flick whose regional characteristics solidify it
as a wholly original homegrown nightmare meal unfettered or processed by
editorial powers. Have fun blowing your
mind!
--Andrew Kotwicki
