Amour ewwww
Love hurts in S.F. IndieFest's horror-romance hybrids.

By Cheryl Eddy

VALENTINE'S DAY IS nearly upon us, and appropriately enough, this year's San Francisco Independent Film Festival arrives bearing bushels of love. Obsessive love. Disturbing love. Murderous love, complete with passion-packed parting gifts of terror and bloodshed. Ah, romance!

Hands down, the fest's freakiest date movie is first-time writer-director Robert Parigi's Love Object, which delves into a love triangle formed by a guy, a girl, and a rather realistic sex doll. Creepy loner Kenneth (Desmond Harrington) toils in a cubicle farm, writing user manuals. He doesn't socialize with his coworkers or his neighbors, least of all his nosy landlord next door (excellently played by Udo Kier, patron saint of creepy loners everywhere). Kenneth's seemingly firm grip on reality begins to crumble when his boss (Rip Torn) entrusts him with a hugely important new assignment – and a comely assistant, Lisa (Melissa Sagemiller), to help him complete it. After a rocky start, the pair hit it off: she loves vintage clothes, zines, and waltzing; he loves ... Nikki, the $10,000 sex doll he's bankrupted himself to acquire. Kenneth converses with Nikki, dances with her, eats meals with her, watches The English Patient with her – she's so much like a real girlfriend, it almost makes sense when she starts to get jealous of Lisa. Almost.

Like any good thriller, the film's second half is dominated by torture and mayhem, but Love Object burrows deeper than the standard slash-'em-up. Harrington, last seen running from inbreds in Wrong Turn, plays Kenneth like a tech-savvy Norman Bates, so in love with Nikki that when he's aroused by Lisa, his only way of coping is to go, well, psycho. He's also got a little bit of Vertigo in him, encouraging the unaware Lisa to dress and style her hair exactly like Nikki. Kenneth may feel familiar at times, but Love Object stands on its own as an unsettling work, sharing a thing or two about the dangers of isolation and of folding too far into one's fantasy world – as well as some sly asides about office politics and bungling police work.

Love takes another tragic turn in Hair High, the latest opus from animator Bill Plympton. In contrast to Love Object's sterile modern setting, Hair High's tale of devotion unfolds at a 1950s high school, with a smoking rockabilly soundtrack to match. The daily humiliations of new-kid-in-school Spud (voiced by Eric Gilliland) are aptly captured by Plympton's inventive visuals (as Spud takes his seat, he shrinks while the staring eyes of his classmates grow huge). Before long, Spud runs afoul of teen dreams Cherri (Sarah Silverman) and Rod (Dermot Mulroney), but in serving penance as Cherri's "slave," the unlikely duo fall in love (the gloriousness of their first kiss is illustrated by having rainbows, butterflies, and hamburgers cascade between their lips). It ain't pretty when Rod finds out – but fear not, love conquers all, even if it has to conquer all from beyond the grave. Hair High's greatest delights lie not in the Teen Angel-ish story line but in the episodes of good-natured vulgarity that crop up along the way. A bit about one of Rod's cronies, who serves as the school's mascot at football games (a little predictably, they're "the Fightin' Cocks") and goes berserk after ingesting an entire bottle of sex aid Tijuana Tonic (sideline announcer: "That cock's full of spunk!"), is a particular highlight.

Decidedly less mirth colors Alexandre Aja's Haute tension – literally translated as High Tension, though the subtitles insist on the cheesier Switchblade Romance. It's hard to see much romance here, but you can't miss the gallons and gallons of blood (a decapitation early on features an outstanding illustration of the merits of projectile gore). Getting too deep into Haute tension's plot, or the "love" at its core, would spoil the ending (though major hints as to what's really going on are laid on thick in the first reel). Suffice it to say, two twentysomething women journey to an isolated farm to visit one of their families, and on the first night it's In Cold Blood all over again. One girl is kept alive and spirited away; the other girl, who manages to hide during the rampage, sets off in pursuit. Even if the planes of the plot don't always match up (which makes for frustrating postviewing reflection), the razor-sharp Haute tension is still one of the more hair-raising movies you're likely to see this year.

An entirely different kind of amour is detailed in U.K. filmmaker Julian Richards's Last Horror Movie. This high-concept, low-budget faux doc (think Man Bites Dog) purports to capture the exploits of a "real" serial killer named Max (Kevin Howarth), who is carrying on a pretty serious love affair with the camera, not to mention the sound of his own voice. An affable chap, Max works as a wedding photographer and (unlike Love Object's Kenneth) has a healthy social life. Though he employs a cameraman, he's more often directly addressing us, the audience, when he launches into a monologue about his methods ("I try to mix things up a bit: weapons, locations, victims. That way they can't get a profile on you.") or his motivations ("I'm trying to make an interesting film about murder ... you can't do anything interesting without giving people a shock."). Serial killers may be the most clichéd cinematic concept going, but The Last Horror Movie distinguishes itself with some clever moments (he's clearly a maniac, but Max is never predictable); though the film's final twist is, oddly, aimed more at home-video viewers, it's still plenty chilling.

A much more wholesome affection fills Celluloid Horror, Ashley Fester's doc about Kier-La Janisse, founder of Vancouver's CineMuerte International Film Festival. Janisse's struggle to earn respect for horror films is admirable; she's taken on the British Columbia Censor Board (and won) and is genuinely devoted to bringing lesser-known, "artier" movies to the masses. Last year the fest's traveling program came to the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts laden with such delights as Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat and a sweet new print of Zombie – reason enough to love Janisse long time, even if you give the engaging, if overlong, Celluloid Horror a pass.

San Francisco Independent Film Festival

The sixth San Francisco Independent Film Festival – also known as S.F. IndieFest – runs Feb. 5-15. Venues are the Castro Theater, 429 Castro, S.F.; Roxie Cinema, 3117 16th St., S.F.; Women's Building, 3543 18th St., S.F.; and Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway, Oakl. Advance tickets (most shows are $7 to $9) and a complete festival schedule are available at www.sfindie.com. For screenings and show times see Film listings.