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.

The Godfathers

Although it would be The Godfathers: Part Two that would implode Danman Productions, this is the one that paved the way for the overdue extinction. Clocking in at around 50 minutes, it was ambitious. Not good, mind you. Just ambitious. (And, thankfully, nowhere near as tedious as the trailer hinted it might be.)



Re: ambition, there's one scene involving eight actors and a camera person. That's nine kids! I mean, that's enough to start a freaking baseball team! If nothing else, it speaks to my curious powers of persuasion back then. What could I possibly have enticed nine kids with? Cookies? Fame? I guess that must have been it. Well, dudes, here's your fame. Let me get back to you on those cookies.



There was only one good reason Matt N. and I got to play the godfathers: we had tuxes. As proud members of our school's chamber choir (and, lord help us, show choir), we were both up to our armpits in bow ties, vests, and cummerbunds. Unfortunately, we grossly overestimated the hilarity of our Brando impressions (though I do kind of think our continual references to stuffing our jowls with cotton are kinda cute).



Probably the oddest thing about The Godfathers is the tone. In the third video, there's a scene between Ben and I that's actually rather sad (and, no, I don't mean pitiful-sad). Large stretches of the movie are weirdly sober. Even the snowy holiday setting contributes to the sense of melancholy. So what was I going for here? Parody? Drama? I don't know now, and I don't think I knew then, either.



Points of (some) interest:

* Stop with the in-jokes already! The Naughty Elephant and the Bastard Chicken Clock both get gratuitous shout-outs.

* I love when Joe gets shot and he squeaks, "Ouch!"

* Best line in the entire movie: "Butthead."

* Jami singing "I'm Too Sexy" in the shower.

* The size of Mike's cell phone!!!

* The out-of-nowhere AmberVision scene that is somehow, totally inexplicably, the most tender thing I ever shot. There's something hilariously resigned about how Ben laments that his sunglasses are "just the old regular kind."

* At 3:37 into the final video, the cold weather became too much for our boombox batteries. The famous Godfather theme has never sounded so feeble. Somehow appropriate, don't you think?

Take note, brave viewers: the first couple sections have enough sound issues to seriously try your patience. But take heart! By the third video things pick up considerably. It's all relative, of course, but you know what I'm saying.

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 Missing Masterpieces

Not every Danman Production made it past the script stage. Given the general quality of the movies that did get made, I know this is a harrowing assertion. Nevertheless, I can think of at least three movies that were put into perpetual turnaround. For the first time ever, I share these lost films with the world. Behold!

FRIDAY THE 13TH
No matter that I had never actually seen Friday the 13th. I knew enough to cobble my own version: there was a kid who was really into hockey and who died a terrible (possibly hockey-related?) death and who now rose from the grave to murder teen campers.

I had all the materials: I had a glow-in-the-dark hockey mask from a Halloween set. I had enough corn syrup and dye to make ten gallons of fake blood. I had a freakin' lake, for crying out loud. One thing I did not have, however, was enough actors. I recall calling Joe and trying to cajole him to come out one Saturday, but on this rare occasion he declined. So I took the script that I had scrawled out that morning, as well as the "Camp Crystal Lake" sign I had hastily made from some college-ruled paper and a sharpie, and put them into a drawer. Unlike Jason Vorhees, they were never to rise again.

THE WAGER
Much like Battle of the Arms, this was meant as a late-in-the-game "Tales from the Creep." At some point, someone had given me a novelty bear-trap the size of a quarter, and so I wrote a movie around it. The premise was rather delicious: two bored aristocrats (to be played by Joe and I), make a wager about the nature of greed. Their plan? Throw a dinner party, and on the bathroom floor hide the tiny trap within a wad of money. By the end, the entire cast was fingerless - including one of the aristocrats.

Genius, right?! But if you didn't notice, the period between Misery and Fear were lean times for Danman Productions. Most of my actors had vanished (it was summer vacation, I think), and I ended up starring in everything. The Wager required an entire dinner party worth of actors. I'm sure I considering playing all of the roles, but sadly did not.

PHANTOM OF THE OPERA
This project was so top-secret I don't think I ever told anyone about it - until right now. It came near the end of Danman Productions, when I was high on power and convinced that I could do no wrong. It required a large cast, elaborate costumes, set dressing enough to turn my garage into an underground labyrinth, and songs.

What, didn't I mention that it was going to be the freaking Andrew Lloyd Webber version? Yes. Yes. Shad was going to be the Phantom. I was probably going to be the normal dude. I'm not sure who was tapped for Christine. But it gets even crazier. See, the problem with the soundtrack album was the vocals. If I could only somehow isolate just the music tracks then we could actually sing. You heard me right. I intended to make my actors sing.

Ultimately, the logistics were too complicated. My actors dodged a potentially soul-crushing blow to their psyches. And the world was robbed of perhaps the worst musical in history.

THE DANNY AWARDS
A Danman-only awards show that I have recreated here.

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.

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.)

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?