The Strand experienced a line for the wildly popular film Zorg and Andy.   The audience lined up outside the theatre waiting to get in!

Below are some of the many Tromadance Indiana patrons.  They all have cool tee shirts! Here’s looking at you kid…  oh, wrong genre.           

The following reviews do not express the opinion of the Strand Theatre.

Submitted by:  Terrance Aldridge

(Editor’s Note:  Mr. Aldridge has offered to volunteer for the Strand by writing thoughts on the performances.)

An often heard lament in this town, which I myself frequently quote, is that there is nothing here to do or that nothing culturally exciting occurs.

Ironically, this past weekend’s B-Movie festival, especially in its incarnation at the Strand Theatre, has and will make me re-evaluate and eat my sarcastic jibs.

From Friday to Sunday I watched 38 movies in roughly 35 hours at the Strand, three of which were and are exceptional ventures into cinema that I greatly enjoyed viewing.

Simultaneously, across the town audiences could and probably did enjoy 28 B-Movies at Studio 10, as well as several workshops by film-makers. Further out, on the edge of town, the Skyline Drive presented 11 concerts and four B- movie classics. Meanwhile, in neighboring Franklin patrons and aficionados could watch six classics and attend a national B-Movie Awards ceremony. All told, local Hoosiers were exposed to 70 films on this the first weekend of fall.

It was at the Strand, however, where independent cinema really shined forth like a never before seen beacon in Shelby County and the leading lights of this show were three films, two by native Hoosiers.

In no particular order these films are “Half way to Hell,” written and directed by Greenwood-born Lola Wallace. This micro-budget masterpiece-in-the-making was produced on a budget of around $2000, she said.

Columbus-native Adam Cooley’s ”Can’t or Won’t Not” was entirely produced, conceived and executed as a visual, computer-generated and modified experiment by the 23-year-old self-taught director. It was, perhaps the most artistically challenging and provocative film shown during TromaDance.

Finally, the multi-part feast “The Italian Zombie Movie,” will perhaps spawn new conspiracy theories about independent films. One such ironic confluence is that this brash and entertainingly disturbing movie was produced, filmed and acted out by an entirely volunteer cast. Strange then, indeed, that it received its first national showing in a historic, local performing arts center, equally staffed, run and directed by a voluntary crew.
Cinema, like all arts, is a mental invasion which allows one to perceive and see the world and existence in new and different ways.  This is exactly what Shelbyville had to offer this weekend. Perhaps if we work at it, this festival of independent films and B-movies will return, grow and continue to feature and nurture local visionaries as it entertains Hoosiers. After all, who ever heard of the tiny town called Sundance 31 years ago.

The following reviews do not express the opinion of the Strand Theatre.

Submitted by:  Terrance Aldridge

In film festivals of any all kinds, such as Tromadance at the Strand Theatre, one often gets a rather eclectic mix of poor, really bad, downright ugly, scaringly good and rare occasional gems of sparkling brilliance. Sunday’s features, in Shelbyville’s only downtown theatre, were no exception to this unwritten rule.

The day began early with an exceptionally horrid attempt “Vampire City,” that merely seemed to be an excuse to film attractive Austrian women. This insipid tale of a “rock-n-roll vampire” was far and away the most disappointing movie of the entire weekend.

The day, however, was quickly redeemed by four rather fast paced short-films which swung wildly across the spectrum of vampiric themes. The most memorable of these was “The Union,” a vampire wedding filled with assassination and a curious plot twist. Also worthy of mention is “She Thinks She Sees Zombies,” a fast, scream-filled, hilarious farce. Finally, these short excursions into mini-horror reached a psychological peak with “The Faceless,” a morbid story of a victim of violence turned assassin through the healing powers of modern therapy methods.

The next feature was a take on the tired genre of a geeky, nerd turned bully-killing vigilante.  Watching this ghost-filled slasher I was left wondering about the merits of such a gore-filled exploitation and exploration of just such social misfits in a post-Columbine world.

On the heels of this film, followed a more mainstream feature: “Twists of Fate,” a rather straightforward tale of the unglamorous life, decisions and deaths of two rival gangster families.

However, it was the next film, “Can’t or Won’t Not,” which proved itself to be a surprisingly, experimental gem of a film. This digital, computer art themed film was created by a 23-year-old Columbus, Indiana native, Adam Cooley. This, his first movie, was a visually promising , color-filled work that played upon a fusion of pop-culture and computer-generated effects. It was a challenging and interesting exploration of virtual and real life that sadly needed tighter dialogue and a little more variation. All-in-all, Cooley is film-producer that deserves and needs to further continue and refine his heightened visions.

At this time, the eyes of this visual bohemian reviewer required a break, so to journalism I turned, letting the audience review the next feature, “Chaos from Outer Space.”  Most in the crowd said this 72-minute movie would have been better as a short. One frequent weekend-long patron, summed it best in a quick quip “At best this a Z-movie spoof.”

Following was an Australian film, “Demons Among Us,” which started out as promising dark tale. It, quickly, however, descended into a visual melange of special-effects for the sake of special-effects and one soon came to realize that the person who directed this movie had obviously watched the “Blair Witch Project” a few too many times. Finally, if there are demons among us then they surely haunted and ruined the initially promising cinematography of this film.

As on the previous evening of film, the best Movie experience of Sunday night was the next feature “The Italian Zombie Movie: Part II Zombie Atrocity.” If Part I of this epic was a baroque, surreal plunge into madness, discombobulation and mayhem, then Part II was rather strange linear tying of a multitude of plot-lines and the cacophony of conspiracy theories that comprise this film. In short, this movie is the Post-Modern face of horror: a movie that both zombifies the senses and makes ones very skeleton giggle with sarcastic glee.

Kudos to these Michigan movie mavericks. Watching both parts of “The Italian Zombie Movie” makes one realize that it will take countless, repeated viewings for anyone to deconstruct each and every cultural and movie-lore reference encoded into this film. This sensory tome of Berdinski and friends is like encountering the James Joyce of 21st-century cinema:  simultaneously mind-boggling, soul-satisfying and compellingly curious.

The following reviews do not express the opinion of the Strand Theatre.

Submitted by:  Terrance Aldridge

It is a rather strange, bizarre sensation to rise early in the morning and subject oneself to horror and vampire films in broad daylight.  If Friday night’s Tromadance at the Stand Theatre was the advance-guard of a cinematic assault, then Saturday’s continuation of the B-movie festival Tromadance heralded the main forces of this visual and aural army.  It was a day of shorts, features and mid-length movies all designed to either scare, entertain, enlighten or tickle the ribs of audience members.

This independent, cinematic invasion of the Strand’s silver-screen consisted of 15 films, of varying quality, genres and thematic content, with the primary thunder provided by the ”shock and awe,” of one proven master and the unrelenting, dream-assault of a newly rising star.

The unexpected heavy artillery of total sensory attack came from a group of Michigan-based film-makers who physically appeared at the national debut of their phantasmagoric epic “The Italian Zombie Movie.”

The other unexpected event was a visit to the Strand by legendary B-movie director Lloyd Kauffman, founder of Troma Studios, and a surprise showing of his latest film “Poultrygeist.”

Each of these heavyweight events came later, after the initial landings made by several eerie morning visual waves. Of these early celluloid skirmishes, a 12-minute short,”Dilemma“ offered a bizarre, fetishistic, mildly interesting corpse-drama folded into a wry take on sex and death.

The highlight of the morning, however, was an Indiana film “Zorg and Andy.” This irreverently fun-filled movie was shot on location at Ball State, Wabash College and Earlham University. It is a strange, unfolding tale of a cosmic, comic plot that spoofs the B-movie clichés such as aliens, witches, monsters and college high-jinks, all accomplished in a highly polished campy-kitsch style.

The next film “Rise of the Evil Pancakes,” continued this over-the-top madcap take on cinematic spoofs.  This movie is kind of like a homage to Kaufman, who makes several sarcastic cameos in this exploration of vice, gore, soft, fantasy porn and purposely stupid plot-lines. In a unique, ironic twist, these killer pancakes haunted the streets of New York City preying exclusively on “hipsters,” those highfalutin fans of low-brow cinema.

A differing approach to shock came in the next wave of video attack, “Pro and Cons.” This film was a nearly mainstream-horror remake of the classic Greek myth of Oedipus, with a few bizarre twists and turns added for our modern times.  Essentially, it is the sordid, mixed-up tale of a couple of ”escorts” who eventually find out they are siblings being manipulated  by a sleazy, slime ball pimp of a father.

Film festivals, like theater and movie making itself, often require a degree of creative improvisation, and this is exactly what occurred at the Strand early in the afternoon as Kauffman’s latest epic was called in as reinforcement.  “Poultrygeist,” a 2008 Troma release, lives up to and beyond Kauffman’s mantra to make films filled with “danger and stupidity.” It is a classic politically incorrect tasteless spoof of everything from fast-food to gender stereotypes and patriotism. The unrelenting sarcasm and sheer grossness of the frivolous folly of this film was highlighted and heightened by a fully-clothed cameo of legendary porn-star, Ron Jeremy, in a rather sick parody of American pop-culture.

The ensuing film, “Love, Hate, Tragedy,” however, more than made up for and revitalized the aura of drama in the Strand.  This Canadian film is a very disturbing, violent and perplexing modern updating of the Shakespearian theme of “Romeo and Juliet.” Essentially, it is a love tale of passionate nihilism and psychic necrophilia.

Continuing the emotional waves of mental assault, the next film, “Bikini Girls on Ice,” returned to a more mainstream approach to grisly horror. In this tale a mute, human monster slashes and kills a series of bikini-clad coeds and their bumbling male friends.   It is movie that exploits gruesomeness for the sheer sake of gruesomeness and drags on in ridiculous vacuous attempts at both cliched suspense and tired hunt, stalk and kill scenes. A tiring film in a tired, over-used genre.

Fortunately for the audience, the next movie was a cinematic tour-de-force produced and filmed by some of the most twisted, demented and sarcastic people imaginable.  The people who dreamed up and acted out “The Italian Zombie Movie: Part I: Zombie Abomination,” are some really strange and weird dudes and dudettes, and I mean that in a good way.  This is a movie that asks how many varieties and forms of sarcasm are there and the first 100 minutes of Part I take a person through a macabre, surreal journey into this madness.  Cinematographically, this movie is a nonstop visual and auditory bombardment of the senses that soon makes one realize that human eyes and ears are weak and fallible things that often cannot work at the speed or rhythms of normal, not-to-mention hyper-surreal levels of reality.

In fact, this movie so disturbingly mixes and blurs the lines of reality, unreality and hyper-surrealistic in such a manic, sarcastic way that it is nearly impossible to follow its absurdist multi-perspective plot-lines and humor.  Fortunately, however, the film’s producer, director and writer, Thomas Berdinski, devised a solution for such visual overkill: circular repetitions of plot-lines and repeating loops of special effects used to advance and enhance the story.  In short, Part I of the “The Italian Zombie Movie,” whetted my insatiable curiosity and left me both perplexed, overwhelmed and craving more mayhem, humor and deviant sensations.

The final feature, Saturday night’s extravaganza at the Strand was Kaufmann’s classic B- movie masterpiece “The Toxic Avenger.”  This film proves that it does indeed take a unique, creative and vivid imagination to make a movie this grotesque, hilarious and intentionally bad, all at the same time.

The following reviews do not express the opinion of the Strand Theatre.

Submitted by:  Terrance Aldridge

An invasion began in Shelbyville Friday night as independent and B-movie film-makers and their minions descended across the town at three locations: the Strand Theatre, the Skyline Drive and Studio 10 Cinemas. The rabid invaders plan to occupy the town for next several days as part a sinister conspiracy to distribute both independent films and movies so bad they are good.

At the Strand, Friday night’s invasion force consisted of the advance guard of the Tromadance Indiana which presented five low-budget or independent films during this their initial assault on Shelby County.

Meanwhile, across the city other classic B-movies spread like blood crazed demons across all available large format silver screens in a conspiracy masterminded by the Indy Film Co-op and its local allies, operating as “the B-movie Celebration.”  Other reported sightings of these creatures were reported in neighboring Indiana towns like Franklin.

Friday night’s initial foray at The Strand arrived in rapid sequential waves of zombies interspersed with quick flurries of independent short films followed by a tour-de-force performance by a local-born woman conscripted into this bedlam army of the night.

This most fascinating assault on the senses was, in true horror style, saved for the end of the evening. It is “Halfway to Hell,” a work- in-progress, screened for the first time ever anywhere, by native-born Hoosier film director, Lola Wallace.

The evening’s Tromadance extravaganza, however, opened with a foreign film of Eastern European origins, “Arkunan Martitison.” The movie explored the rather vivid, graphic dreams of the unemployed protagonist and his journeys across a bleak, dying industrial town with his equally lost and wandering friends.

Tromdance’s second film of the night “The Face Eater,” quickly shifted the mood of the evening into the more traditional horror genre of really, really bad B- movies.  It is parody of classic-gore films in which a kind -hearted hitman sequentially kills off a cornball mafia of bosses named after such masters of the genre as Romera, Craven, Carpenter and Corman.  In the process of this rampage, our flawed hero seemingly manages to venture enter every known genre of bad film and to refer to nearly all the clichés associated with them, save that of the screaming. busty, bikini-clad babe.

The third offering the night. “The Eternal Pitfall of Prokofiev” was a short work that quickly reshifted the focus the evening again.   This silent, black and white throwback film, set to the classic composers works ,humorously fused the works of such past-masters of comedy as Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton with early German, expressionist cinema . The movie unfolds as a purposely choppy, modern version of Goethe’s tale of Mephistopheles and his pact with devil, told through a dream sequence where the visions of the night’s haunting becomes the macabre reality of the next morning. All-in-all, it was a very entertaining and humorous journey into film history.

The following foray in to bad B-cinema, “Redneck Carnage,” was a stupendous venture into choreographed chaos, a regular sensory overload of zombie-killing, aliens, Bigfoot, bad cops, stoners and nearly every alternative life-style found in Americana.   Most strikingly, the film effectively fused the audio effects of heavy metal thrash music with slasher visuals of zombie-killing carnage as a sport. In the end it even managed to throw an Elvis cameo as a last sardonic twist.

The next installment in this night of macabre madness was a very humorous short, “How to Deal with Telemarketers.” A rather funny snippet of creative ways for citizens to culture-jam those rather annoying interrupters of regular every day reality.

The following cinematic venture of the night, “Soul Robbers from Outer Space“, seems inspired by and destined to become a cult-film classic. This black and white feature was an over-the-top romp into the wastelands of campinesss, kitsch and culture of 1950 cinema. Imagine, if somehow, somewhere Ed Wood meets the X-Files channeled by the really bad and banal near porn of John Waters and you have this movie in a freaky nutshell.

The final stab into the horror genre of the night came from the very promising mind and skills of Lola Wallace, the aforementioned Indiana born director.  This “Rough-cut” micro-budget film is and will be a very intriguing journey into horror movies and may signal a new format in this genre.

Wallace, A USC Film-school -grad, and her creative partner Tom Devlin utilize a hands-on version of film-making as craft. They build, construct and create virtually every special effect in the movie by themselves. More importantly, however, are the story-weaving skills employed in this film. It is a movie about more than mere blood and guts, biker zombie-thugs and a satanic wizard-master.  To her credit, Wallace incorporates an adventure-coming-of-age tale with the Classic tale of the American Road movie. She also deftly adds suspense, plot-driven character development and mystery into her intriguing mix. In short, this is a rather intriguing update of the genre. It is horror married to the epic tragedies of classic Greek drama.  It’s a film about more than gore-for-gore’s sake mayhem.  It is a moral-journey of growth amid bikers, monster-morphing babes and fluent cinematography.

As an aside, Wallace said she hope to have the film completed in roughly a month from now. Hopefully, the final version will come to a screen somewhere near you.  It is a film well worth watching again.

Terri M. arrived at the Strand for Tromadance Indiana with more than an appetite for films.  She is a professional baker from Hobart Indiana and brought a cake to the Troma Entertainment crew.   Below is Terri with her delicious (yes, we had a piece too) cake: