The Danny Awards!

When I posted about aborted projects, I forgot The Danny Awards. They were to be Danman's answer to the Oscars, complete with clips of the nominated films, shots of my actors crossing their fingers and looking tense, and, of course, bloated and tearful acceptance speeches. It was pretty much impossible to pull off without editing equipment, so the idea died.

Tonight, I bring it back to life. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to...

THE DANNIES!!!

Who's that good-looking fella in the tux? Why, it's me, your host!

It's my privilege to finally be able to honor the very best of the very worst. The four awards I'll be presenting tonight are:

• Most-Deaths Award (aka "The Corn Syrup Award")
• Danman MVP (aka "The I-Was-Just-Always-There Award")
• Best Worst Actor
• Best Worst Film

No extended opening musical number here. These actors have waited long enough for their overdue recognition--so let's get this show started!

MOST DEATHS AWARD

It took me a long time--a very long time, you have no idea what I've gone through--to tally up every death scene in Danman Productions. When I finished scorekeeping, I discovered a shocking three-way dead heat between myself, Joe, and Jami, with eight deaths each. So who deserves the award?

Not me. I often killed myself off early so that I could spend my time running the camera (witness my hasty demise in such films as Night of the Living Dead and The Blob). And Joe? As my most persistent leading man, Joe's death-count was but a statistical residue.

Therefore, the award goes to... Jami!

With an atypical amount of enthusiasm from the director (and pints of my sticky blood substitute), Jami got strangled, stabbed, and shot (repeatedly). Plus, he complained about it a lot, something you'll see in the mockumentary Sex, Drugs, and Film: The Rise and Fall of Danman Productions - Part One. Jami, for your trouble, please accept this award. Now get over it!

DANMAN MVP AWARD

Who really put in the man-hours? Over the past year, I've dutifully tagged every blog entry with the names of the featured actors. Once you add them all up, you realize three things:

1) I was in everything. Well, no duh.
2) Joe was in almost everything. Again: duh.
3) Julie was in just as many movies as Joe.

What? Say again? Is it possible we have a dark-horse contender for MVP? Well, let me just open the envelope and see... Why, yes, the winner is Julie!

Why does she look so crafty? It's because she knows something you don't know. Who do you think was running the camera all those times I was on-screen? Oh, sure, sometimes it was Jami or Joe, but more often than not it was Julie. Maybe she didn't get the glory, but Danman Productions couldn't have "succeeded" without her. Congratulations, Julie.

BEST WORST ACTOR

Let's pretend--just for a moment--that we were talking about actual acting ability. In that case, it would be a horse race between Shad and Matt N. Those two had chops, and I tip my hat to both of them. Good show, gents.

But the Danman audience isn't interested in chops. They crave bad accents, inappropriate laughter, and that deer-in-the-headlights gaze you can't learn with a lifetime of lessons--it's a gift you have to be born with. This is one award whose winner was long ago foretold.

I present to you, ladies and gents, Joe. [Thunderous standing ovation.]

Joe was as bad in the first film as he was in the last. Despite starring in over 30 Danman Productions, Joe's skills never advanced--and that's why we love him. It didn't matter if he was portraying an abusive father, a psychotic priest, or Dracula, he never knew what emotion to play and could never, under any circumstances, stop laughing. Thanks to him, we're still laughing all these years later.

BEST WORST FILM

You try winnowing down Danman Productions to five worsts. It ain't easy. Obviously, if we were talking "Best Best Film," there's no question--The Godfathers: Part Two puts everything else to shame (although there is an underground contingent that insists The Bastard Chicken Clock from Hell is my Citizen Kane).

After months of tortured consideration, the nominees for "Best Worst Film" are...

The Blob...

Breakdown: The Eugene Brinkmeister Story...

Fear...

Misery...


...and Night of the Living Dead.

And the Danny goes to...Yes! Yes! I knew it! The Blob!



You can watch the entire thing above. And you should. Though not ambitious in any way, shape, or form, this 9-minute ditty is the zenith of everything that makes Danman Productions great: the catastrophically dismal pairing of Joe and Ben, matchbox cars being pulled by string, model houses being attacked by garbage bags... need I go on?

A final hearty congratulations to tonight's winners. I'll see you at the afterparty, where I fully expect to get beaten up.

The Godfathers: Part Two

At long last, here it is. The final Danman Production.



(Watch or embed the full YouTube playlist.)

Originally, this epic sequel clocked in at 2 hours and 40 minutes. Neither you, I, nor the internet had any interest in uploading that much crap, much less watching it. So I decided to recreate the so-called “Director’s Cut” that vanished circa 1998. By simply tightening, trimming, and reordering, I have eliminated 90 minutes.



You read that right. The version here is 70 minutes long and it breaks my heart. When I set out to shoot a feature-length film at the age of 18, this was how it was supposed to look. When I screened it for my stupefied friends, this was the movie I saw. It’s been 16 years, but The Godfathers: Part Two is finally done.



Although the first 30 minutes are too concerned with which gangsters are on which team, the rest of it is somewhat of a revelation. The torture scene, the seduction scene, the Russian Roulette scene, that blood-soaked finale—I’ll just say it. The kid behind the camera was starting to get it.

But it was too late: college had arrived. Like most of my friends, I packed my bags and a day later found myself sitting alone in an unfamiliar dorm room. I could sense it in the frat-house screams coming from across the street and the laughter booming through the wall: I was no longer the big fish. I was something much, much smaller.



The Godfathers: Part Two was my attempt to hold on. If I could keep Danman Productions together, then I still had a tether on my old life. I organized the script around which friends I had access to at college and which friends I could meet back in my hometown on holidays and weekends. It was massively complicated and I threw myself into it. The more elaborate the task, the less time I had to recognize that something big was ending.



The shoot concluded over Christmas break of 1993, during which my new college pal (and begrudging co-star) Tony hauled his ass to Fairfield to film the climax in Ben’s garage during one of the coldest winters in Iowa history. When I yelled “cut” after the final shot, everyone shouted in relief and ran for their coats and cars. And that was that. Danman Productions was finished.



Even tyrannical teenage directors have to let go, and eventually I did. Sure, there were college movies, but they were largely humorless affairs that stir within me almost none of the joy of Danman Productions. After graduation I became a legit filmmaker and author, but as much fondness as I have for my films and books, sitting in my house and partaking of them is not my idea of a good time. Watching Danman Productions, though—well, it’s been 16 years and I’m still not sick of it.



Back then, these movies allowed me to revel in my friendships by just hitting “rewind.” I dare say they are even more important to me now. Today my former superstars are spread all across the country, making a living in so many different ways it makes my head spin. Some of us are still close; others I’ve lost all touch with. But when I watch these movies it feels like I could call up any one of them and five minutes later we’ll be cruising around the square, windows rolled down.



I did add one thing to The Godfathers: Part Two. As an homage to the best friends I ever had, I created special end credits to replace the illegible originals. If you find yourself tearing up a little at the final fade out, you’re not alone. This is dedicated to the tireless cast and crew of Danman Productions. This may not be the movie I originally made, but it's the one I had in my heart.

Harvest of Wrath

Recently I was invited back to my high school to talk about my book, and during a Q&A someone asked me to relate my favorite high-school memory. My response: I really enjoyed not going to my senior prom. The answer drew applause, though it was meant as a joke. Now that I think about it, though, it was a better answer than I realized, maybe even the best answer.

I was the model kid: ace student, involved in so many activities that I was president of a couple groups that I never even attended (it's true!), and doer of all things I was supposed to do. As rebellions go, not attending prom was pretty pitiful, but it's all I had--I turned down a few potential dates, and, for what seemed like the first time ever, I did what I wanted to do. And that was to stay home and rent a movie.

That movie was Reservoir Dogs. Now before you start rolling your eyes, keep in mind this was before Pulp Fiction. No one--certainly no one in Fairfield, Iowa--had ever heard of Quentin Tarantino, and my plucking the VHS tape from the bottom rung of the grocery store video wall was pure chance. It blew my mind, and like a teenage Roger Corman, I wasted no time cobbling together a knockoff. (A couple years later in college, every film student would be doing the same. See, I was a vanguard.)

If there was ever a Danman Production in need of a re-edit, this is it. It doesn't help that I start this "thriller" with two-and-a-half minutes of the most flaccid fireworks you'll ever see, followed by even more opening-credit crap. I recommend skipping to the 4-minute mark. Even that is a tough recommendation to make. I'm honestly shocked at how bad this is!

Mostly notable for Jami's surprisingly comfortable turn as biker Bobby McGoon, his legendary (accidental) destruction of my mom's marigolds, and the surprise cameo of cult hero Officer Bill Johansen. A failure, to be sure, but one I reworked (much more successfully) into the climax of The Godfathers: Part Two.

(Hint: You know how in Star Trek, red shirts tipped off those poor suckers about to get vaporized? Same deal in the Danman universe. I knew that fake blood showed up best on white, so that right there is your tip-off: if someone is wearing a white T, they're in for it. Keep this in mind as we move forward.)

Father Sin

If anyone was qualified to take on the Catholic Church, it was me and my merry band of teenage yo-yos. Thus this excruciatingly paced drama/thriller about a boy's sleuthing into the life of a murderous priest. That priest is played by Joe in another hilariously goofball performance, but you gotta slog through about nearly twenty minutes before you get to hear him whine, "Surely they couldn't have found the checklist of my wife's murderers!" That's good writin', Kraus.

Why is this movie so damn complicated? I've watched this three times now and I still can't follow it. Thankfully, nothing is confusing for the first seven minutes. Why? Because the movie begins with a seven-minute opening credit sequence. It kicks off with classical, smash cuts to Pearl Jam, and segues oh so smoothly to Enya. Yes, Enya. I had no shame. (Footnote: many years later, when shooting the book trailer for The Monster Variations, I shot in the same cemetery as the one in the Enya scene. Truth!)

Some notes on the actors:

* Father Sin featured our first return character. Officer Bill Johansen, so manly and commanding in The Blob, is once again played to jittery perfection by Ben. Along the way he gets to say a bunch of cool crap like, "Comprende?"

* Leading man Mike, in his first Danman appearance, steals the show with his guitar wailing. Mike had talent, real talent, and since we at Danman Productions had never seen talent before, all we could do is gape at it like morons during the gratuitous shredding scene.

* Matt K. also made his debut as the Cajun bum. Why Cajun? Because Matt K. did a pretty good Cajun accent. Unfortunately, the accent completely swallows the highly important exposition (that he's clearly reading off the script because, like the rest of us, he couldn't follow the plot, either).

* Shad had gone off to college at this point, and his status was clearly "elder statesman." I mean, his cameo role was Mike's dad, for chrissakes. I'm surprised we didn't make him use a walker.

* Julie, the unheralded workhorse who quietly slaved away in practically every single Danman Production ever, is mysteriously absent. But no! Those wedding hands at the beginning are hers. It's a brutal injustice that she was left out of the credits, and to make up for it, I've tagged her name to this entry. I'm sure that makes up for the decades of grief and therapy my oversight caused.

The Blob

The Garbage Bag would've been a more accurate title. With a flapping Hefty bag as our dastardly villain, we needed a couple of manly heroes. Instead we got Joe in his most peevish role to date and Ben (who had impressed me with his zombie grunting) as the kind of cop who says things like "Drive, fool! Drive!"

The Blob has the greatest final scene of any Danman Production. And that's saying a lot, because the scenes that precede it include inappropriate doo-wop music, special-effects shots with crappy-looking miniatures, and phone calls to President Bush. The final scene begins with Ben saying, "Well, so much for that Blob"--so much, indeed!--and ends with that old chestnut, the maniacal laugh.

"Apple butter, grape jelly, blob". Soon this will be your new mantra.

Battle of the Arms

Don't we all remember our first Vietnam flashback scene? I sure do. I play "Jack," a sweaty dude with only one arm. "Arm donors are scarce," says his doctor, which causes him to flash back to 1969, when he was part of an elite fighting force that wore white tennis shoes, jeans, and sweatshirts.

You would think the best thing about this would be the Vietnam stuff. But no! It's that scene where I'm stewing at the table and tell my my cad wife (played, naturally, by my sister, who may or may not also be my doctor) that I'm "thinking about the war again" and she flippantly suggests that I "stop that foolishness." Clearly, this is my Deer Hunter.

Even better than that: for a movie about a guy with one arm, I manage to spent two entire scenes with both arms.

Jif commercial

Anyone who knew me as a teen remembers my cat Gooshy. My mom had named her Marilyn, but that name just didn't "pop," as they say in the biz. I was obsessed with Gooshy. I carried her everywhere, communicated to her in babytalk, and pretty much annoyed the hell out of anyone who came within earshot.

With my actors fleeing me like I had the plague, it was inevitable that I would recruit Gooshy to star in a video. Despite her acting skills being superior to those of my usual actors, she was even more difficult to work with. Thankfully I had the good sense to know a good blooper reel when I saw it and thus this gem was born.

Scary side note: At the end of the video, for less than one second, there's a mysterious shot of my Grandpa (deceased). As far as I know, this split second is the only existing video footage of him. There's something eerie about it, as if his ghost is breaking through the footage to say hello. Hi, Grandpa.

Night of the Living Dead (2 of 2)

Kinda like the first half, except with more dying. Witness:

* Chris's girlish, screaming death-howl as the Shad-zombie strangles him.

* Julie's inability to get more than three feet outside the house before she's overwhelmed with zombies, despite the fact that she has a gun and they are "slow."

* Bad-ass Joe's death by the nerdiest, squeakiest-voiced assassin in the history of cinema (me).

You have to hand it to Night of the Living Dead--it's probably the fastest-paced Danman Production ever. And speed is a quality that will become increasingly elusive as the movies drag on (and on).

Bonus: the credit music is from Rocky IV!

Night of the Living Dead (1 of 2)

Oh, damn. Finally we get down to kickin' some zombie butt. Night was my favorite horror flick as a kid, yet somehow I sensed what the original was lacking--bland, robotic acting and half-ass make-up. Luckily, I had both!

After some more chillingly authentic screaming from Julie, I get killed within seconds of this one starting--and if that's not a good sign, I don't know what is. Moments later, action-hero Joe is on the case, and it's his brainstorm that a flimsy card table leaned against a window will protect the house from invader zombies. What's really weird is that it works.

Do not--not! not!--miss Part 2 of this, which has a battle royale zombie fight scene that will haunt your dreams for the rest of your natural life. Your unnatural life, too, maybe.

The Twilight Zone

The good news: a trip to my grandparents' farm meant I could make a movie that wasn't set in my living room! The bad news: no actors. Thus the stage was set for my surreal triple-performance as a bratty kid, the kid's grandpa, and Rod Serling.

The plot is deliciously stupid: two siblings dare each other to perform increasingly dangerous feats until a climb up the side of a silo ends in tragedy courtesy of a gun-happy grandpa. The teen falls to his death (with an impressively wet smack! noise), whereupon the barely perturbed grandpa utters the most disinterested eulogy in history.

Two recollections: 1) I remember trying really hard to make the dares look difficult, but walking across hay bales? Climbing up a five-foot rock pile? These things are not difficult. 2) About half-way through the taping, Julie and I were abandoned to finish it ourselves, which meant that one of us had to be behind the camera at all times. The trippy result--no character could be in the same shot as another character--approaches a level of weirdness that's almost avant-garde.

Practically my favorite Danman Production, perhaps second only to The Blob. Watch it!

Duckcorder

Talk about unnecessary! This fake commercial is a sequel to the fake commercial we made about the Duck Phone. I'd recommend watching "Duck Phone" first, but I can't really recommend watching any of these.

You have to give me some points for originality, though. There are a lot of things a kid filmmaker could do with a house full of hunting paraphernalia, but pretending a wooden duck decoy was a camcorder is pretty out there. It's actually kind of surreal, if you think about it. Screw it, I'm a genius.

Dan's Brew

I have no memory of making this. Apparently it's a commercial for an awful-tasting beer called Dan's Brew: "The beer for when you think you've got it bad."

Yet there's something about this video that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. Maybe it's those backyard corn stalks, or the dusk-hour lighting, or the total lack of self-consciousness, but for me it just captures that feeling of a summer night in Iowa when there wasn't anything better to do than make a 42-second commercial about fake beer.

Sorry to get all sepia-toned on you.

Jinsu Knives

To decompress after the epic that was Misery, Joe and I shot this Jinsu knives parody. Of course it involves machetes and fake blood, but the main thing this has going for it is that it's really short. Sure, there are a couple cute touches (the flourish with which I caress the "Jinsu Peeler"; the band-aid on my finger after I hack into it), but let's just how or that the... sorry, I just got bored and forgot what I was writing.

So let's take this opportunity to bask in that kick-ass basement mural! As the basement was my room, I would've preferred a cooler image-- the Death Star, maybe, or those dancing girls from "In Living Color"--but the 'rents went with the meditative autumn scene. There's also a Spuds MacKenzie doll sitting on top of the TV. You know, for all you Spuds MacKenzie fanatics out there. Yeah, that's the best I can do today.

Misery (part 2)

If you only watch one-half of one teen version of Misery this year, make this the half you watch! There's so many choice cuts here, I'm gonna need to bust out the bullet points:

* The opening action scene marks my pioneering of the hold-the-boombox-up-to-the-camera method of making a movie soundtrack. Sadly, my genius goes unrecognized to this day.

* My dorky performance as the good-ol'-boy sheriff has two highlights. First, at the end of the "I don't reckon he's dead" scene, you can hear me skid my tires off the driveway. (I was just learning to drive.) Second, I get shot. Finally!

* While it's cute that Paul gets his foot sawed off with a butter knife in our version, where's the gore!? I was probably afraid to get my parents' room all bloody. If I had a nickel for every time I said that.

* If only the real Misery ended with Paul screaming "Die! Die! Die!" before dispatching the psycho with a punch. Yes, a single, manly punch.

Overall, though, Misery is much more comprehensible than what came before it (or after it). Why? The only thing I can think of is the absence of Joe. Sorry, Joe.

Misery (part 1)

Here it is! Stephen King's Misery as performed by hapless high-school teens! This was the first of our "real" movies (you can tell by the astonishing letterbox effect) and in some ways it's the best. Shad plays the captured novelist Paul Sheldon; Jenny plays the psychotic Annie Wilkes. Even at an early age, Shad's improv acting instincts were flawless; when he falls from the bed onto his hideously broken legs, he says, "Oh, that smarts."

But, if I do say so myself, the show is stolen by the moronic phone conversations of Paul's curiously laconic agent and the local redneck sheriff, played by yours truly. In probably the lousiest performance of my career (and that's saying a lot), I wear a fishing cap (our closest approximation to a sheriff's hat) and adopt an unbelievably irritating country accent. Someone should've used this footage to blackmail me. Too late, suckas.

Bonus points for cameos by an Apple IIe, more fake cigarettes, and that damn bottle of vodka again.

(Part 2 has all the good stuff--action music, death scenes, dream sequences--so stay tuned.)

Duck Phone

This won't make a lick of sense unless you remember those Sports Illustrated "football phone" ads that blanketed the airwaves in the 80's. Actually, even then it won't make much sense.

Here's what you need to know: In Iowa, I was surrounded by hunters (I thought everyone ate venison three times a week until I was, oh, 18), and so they became the butt of many jokes in my movies. In this commercial for the fantastically titled fake magazine Iowa's Most Bloody Deer and Disgusting Fish, I play something around 22 different "country hick" characters, which is pretty ridiculous considering that I myself was a country hick nonpareil. Watch until the very end for my delicate portrayal of the "I'm glad I called" guy. Emmy Award, please.

Sitter Splitter

Plot: Two brats drive their babysitter insane with fake ghosts. But when real ghosts show up, the boys end up joining their sadistic sitter in the loony bin. If you enjoy watching high schoolers pretending to be annoying little kids, then, wow, not only is this your lucky day but I feel kind of sorry for you, too.

It's hard to see how a few flying pillows could drive anyone mad, though Shad and Joe's screeching performances are another story. This is mostly notable for the final shot (set at the creatively spelled "Mt. Pleasant Mental Hospitol"), which is genuinely disturbing. Seriously. Watch it and try to tell me all that giggling doesn't leave you a little unnerved.

Finally, a mystery revealed: Child-welfare advocates may be wondering about the "Catering by Smitty's Wine & Spirits" in all of our closing credits. Yes, it's true. The entire Danman crew would get plastered before every shoot. Scandal! Oh, who are we kidding? We couldn't even score real cigarettes. Smitty's was just a short-lived local liquor joint that we felt obligated to mock. Alas, it was we who should have been mocked by Smitty. Sorry, Smitty.

4-D

Plot: A girl's new "4-D" television is bunches of fun... until she changes the channel to Dracula. Clearly by this time I was feeling the cocaine buzz of confidence: a zany premise, multiple costume changes, in-jokes, cheap laffs. Basically, ugh.

This is notable mostly for Joe's triple role as a frustrated tennis pro, Faith No More guitarist, and Count Dracula. But there's two more things I want to draw your attention to:

1. Jenny as an overweight game show contestant. After getting a whammy, I find her delivery of the line, "Thanks, Wink!" especially eloquent.

2. During the shot of me in the closing credits, I whine "Joe!" as Joe screws up the shot. It's obvious I'm actually pretty pissed. Ah, moments like these are what make this whole blog worth it.

Doll House

Plot: An abusive dad suffers the inane vengeance of his daughter's dolls. Who's to blame? I'd put my money on that "priceless Egyptian jewel" that Dad stole from "the museum." Possibly the biggest mystery of this deeply mysterious movie is why anyone would go through all the trouble of stealing a "priceless Egyptian jewel" only to leave it sitting on their living room cabinet.

With Shad and Julie limited to last-second cameos, this one's all about the acting chops of Joe and Jenny. Though technically Joe was younger than Jenny, he gives a masterful, nuanced performance as her father, doing all the things that fathers do--you know, getting bombed on vodka, incinerating their kids' toys, and saying befuddling things like "I lost my money." You what your what now?

The Geek

Plot: some bullies accidentally impale a geek with gardening shears. When the geek returns from the grave, bad make-up and disturbingly realistic screaming ensue. Say what you will, "The Geek" is a quantum leap forward from "Kat Killer." I mean, the scene where Shad gets whacked? That scene oozes tension! Perhaps oozes is too strong. It trickles tension. At this point it became clear that Shad was the only one among us with an iota of acting ability. That didn't stop me from hilariously featuring Joe in lead roles. Stay tuned.

Shad's death scene also features a fake cigarette made from a rolled-up piece of paper. We weren't even cool enough to score real cigs. Losers.

If that scintillating picture of dirt still hasn't convinced you to press "play," consider this: a freaking corpse will rise from that dirt! It was our first special effect, and even though you can clearly see the rest of Joe's arm on the right side of the frame, dude, were we stoked about this shot! (I was somewhat less stoked when Joe laughed on camera while he was supposed to be dead, but what was I supposed to do? I'd already impaled him with gardening shears.)

One thing I can't figure is why we always had the damn TV on while we were shooting. In the background, you can clearly hear MTV playing a U2 song followed by a Raid bug spray commercial. Perhaps "The Geek" was a commentary on the ills of commercialism. Yeah, that's the ticket.

Kat Killer

Plot: An idiot tries to find out which of three idiots killed his idiot wife. Idiocy ensues. Plus there's some cats (we always had 20 or 30 cats running around the house), some implied cannibalism, closing credits that take up about half of the total running time, and, if you watch close, our soon-to-be-trademark joke of the Three Men and a Baby ghost hiding among the drapes.

I know what you're thinking. Whoa boy. This is bad. Worse than you had imagined. Almost unwatchable. But don't abandon hope! Wait until you see The Blob! You will never forgive yourself if you crap out of this experiment before The Blob!

Anyway, "Kat Killer" is historic for so many reasons. 1) It was the first time I'd ever picked up a camera. 2) It features our very first racially insensitive character (check out Julie no habla-ing Ingles). 3) It is the debut leading-man performance of Joe. Oh, Joe. You will grow to love Joe. If that robotic, maniacal chuckle at the end doesn't steal your heart, then you, sir, are made of stone.

Obviously our "Tales from the Creep" parodies were based on HBO's "Tales from the Crypt" series, which was brand-new at the time. Since there are four more of these coming, I apologize in advance for how irritating I am as "The Creep." I don't know what to say. I'm sorry?