31 days of Horror: Day One: Coven

 Coven (1997)

Directed by Mark Borchardt

Here we go. It's October 1st, and that means I'm going to watch and write about a different horror film every day till Halloween. You can check out last years list by scrolling down this very blog, and see the lists I did with Adam Clarke for the scope newspaper going back to 2008 at the handy dandy Scope web page. It's worth taking a look, because we wrote about some pretty awesome films.

For my first movie this year I chose Mark Borchardt's short film, Coven. Borchardt will be familiar to people from the Documentary American Movie, which chronicled the life of the low budget film maker, Including the making of this very film. I was a huge fan of American Movie, and so was curious to see the finished product. I think the thing that surprised me the most about this film, was that despite the way it was portrayed in the documentary (which was as an Ed Wood level exercise in incompetence*) it wasn't half bad. The black and white photography in particular was often very effective. Not that it was a good movie, but given the limitations it could have been a lot worse.

The basic plot (and the plot is pretty basic) is that Mike (played by Borchardt himself) is an alcoholic writer just about ready to hit rock bottom. A friend of his suggests he come to a meeting of a self help group that in fact turns out to be a coven (I guess that would be a spoiler if you'd never seen a movie before). The coven is up to no good (or something), and soon Mike is being pursued through the woods, and stabbed in the knee. The whole thing is pretty loose, and never quite makes a lot of sense, but that's never too big an issue with horror films.

What it does have going for it is some pretty great photography, a moody if uneven score by Patrick Nettesheim, and some spirited performances from the mostly armature cast. There are a couple of particularly good rants by members of the self help group. Borchardt hasn't managed to finish another film since this one, and that's too bad. I feel like there's a lot of promise in this short, though he might want to find a competent writer to collaborate with.

If you enjoyed American Movie, or just like low budget regional horror films, this is well worth 30 minutes of your time.

 *Not that I really think Ed Wood was incompetent.