TOWNIES

Written, Produced, Photographed, Edited, and Directed by Wayne Alan Harold

Dickie - Toby Radloff
Pricey - Lori Scarlett
Caduceus - Shane Koltnow

TOWNIES is the micro-budget version of Tod Browning's FREAKS. It's gritty, bleak, and funny as hell. Not just director Wayne Alan Harold's best film, it's light-years above and beyond anything he has done to date.

Stark black and white photography enhance the themes of the film, right and wrong, good and evil, us and them. Fortunately, Harold knows there are more than just two sides to every story, life isn't as cut and dry as some would have us believe. Sometimes the circumstances dictate our perspectives.

The world of TOWNIES divides it's populous into two camps, sideshow rejects known as "townies", and those who abuse them. Three loosely interwoven, parallel stories follow the lives and hardships of the town's most spastic inhabitants.

There's Dickie, a dumpster-hopper who is just looking for love. One day he finds the body of a murder victim while out making his rounds and decides to take her home. When you've been without a loving relationship as long as Dickie, everything starts to look good.

Moral: Love is where you find it, but love might not always find you.

Caduceus is a bald-headed mute. The local women are put off by his very presence. Being led by snobbery, the local women try to run Cuduceus over with their cars and have their boyfriends torture him. Little do they know that Caduceus happens to be an ass-kicking martial artist with a mean-streak for revenge.

Moral: Appearances can be deceiving, but the deception isn't always the appearance.

The third story is the most uplifting and positive. Pricey is mildly retarded and hasn't spoken in years. She forms a bond with a single mother family, waiting patiently on the porch everyday for them to either wake up or arrive home. After what appears to be a rape (it's never shown, only implied), Pricey seeks comfort with the only friends she has. Confused, she wanders off with the family's young son into the woods and never looks back.

Moral: Even the most lost can be found, but only if they want to.

While there might be a "moral" to every tale, this is not a tale about morals. It's a film about how low can people sink. After Caducues breaks an attackers nose, does he have to go after the attacker's girlfriend? After Dickie "plays" with his new friend, what should he do next? After Pricey wanders off with the young boy, what will she do to him? I think you will be surprised how each story unfolds, twists are never in the direction you foresee.

Characters in the film might be judgmental, but Harold is never judgmental of his characters. Bigots are treated the same as Freaks and Sinners are treated the same as Saints. Which is which is left up to you, the viewer. By laying the characters bare on the table, Harold asks us to first reassess ourselves before we pass assess others.

Something that really stood out was film's lack of time. The narrative is free flowing with characters moving in and out of each other's story. The events could have unfolded over a course of 2 days or 2 years. By doing this, Harold doesn't restrict anyone to the confines of their own existence. As it is in life, we each have our own stories to tell, but who knows how many stories we've affected along the way.

After watching TOWNIES, I know I'll be more sensitive to the stories around me.

DVD Update

TOWNIES is underground cinema at it's finest. It's an example of everyone giving it their all for little more than the sense of accomplishment to pull off a work of art that achieves soul-searching insight. The very fact that a company such as Tempe Video is taking a chance on this movie, which possesses a production budget of approximately $300, and releasing it on DVD is a testament to it's professional quality and it's unflinching power.

The downside to a Tempe DVD release is that they are usually so filled with extras and information that anything less than the benchmark set by whatever movie happened to be the last Tempe release is bound to be a disappointment. In this case, the last Tempe DVD was SKINNED ALIVE, a disc which possesses both a commentary and a behind-the-scenes retrospective that are so bleak in regards to the film industry that they would make any aspiring filmmaker give up their dreams and take a job cleaning toilets with their tongues.

TOWNIES' behind-the-scenes featurette has star Toby Radloff discussing the state in which he left director Wayne Allan Harold's bathroom tissue after ... er ... dropping some kids off at the pool ... so to speak.

Not exactly the Filmschool-in-a-Box I've grown accustomed to from Tempe DVDs.

The features on TOWNIES remind me of my personal favorite Tempe disc, VENGEANCE OF THE DEAD in that it shows the history of the filmmakers up to the point where the film was made. You have an early short film from Harold titled "Payback is a Bitch" that is as dark as anything in TOWNIES, as well as some Genuine Nerd web-segments that play off Radloff's persona. I can't tell from the twisted tone of these web-segments if Harold has an affection for Radloff as a person or an affection for Radloff as a punchline. It's a little unsettling as Harold prods Radloff into pontificating on subjects such as the history of feminine hygiene products.

The pot-of-gold is an old television interview with Harold, J.R. Bookwalter, and Harold's former production partner Mark Bosco, that shows the men for both who they are and who they want to be. Bosco is all Mr. Producer as he positions himself as they center of attention while viewers can't focus on much more than his slicked-to-perfection hair and his off-the-rack suit. Bookwalter, who looks bored to tears in his shirt and sweater, doesn't say much during the interview other than a few reference to titles he's helped get off the ground. Harold, who looks like a leather-clad fashion designer in his all-black outfit, is equal parts humility and intellectualism.

In addition to these men's public personas, we also get to see a style of grassroots filmmaking long sense overshadowed by the internet. While the trio discuss their work, they are actually trying to recruit extras for a large shoot the next night. Talk about killing two birds with one stone.

If you do a little hunting, you'll find two Easter eggs. One is the TOWNIES trailer, the other a news item spotlighting local business in Akron, with Harold, Bookwalter, and Bosco the focus. While I didn't pay much attention, I seem to recall the guys being dressed identically in their sitdown interview. Unfortunately, you don't get any more insight into the group as a cohesive team.

Finally, the commentary. Sponsored by Rolling Rock (sort of), Harold, Radloff, and comic book artists P. Craig Russell and Jay Geldhof (who appear in featured roles) try to see who can get the drunkest the quickest while trying to recall every anecdotal story they can relate to the film's production. Turns out Harold is a clepto with a penchant for shopping carts and apple pies. He's also dated the majority of the women helping out with the TOWNIES production. I think that says a good deal about the man, even his ex's are willing to come back and help out time and time again.

For what it's worth, I'll just keep checking out Harold's movie time and time again. Lord knows when the next micro-budget effort will come along that's even a fraction as profoundly entertaining as TOWNIES. And this new DVD is the best possible presentation you will find for a movie this small.

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