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Released by MVD Visual
Released on: April 21, 2015
Directed by: G. Cameron Romero
Cast: B.J. Hendricks, Ian Hutton, Madeline Meritt, Tom Sizemore
Year: 2014
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The Movie:
Aspiring filmmaker Jack Humphrey (B.J. Hendricks) is tasked by his studio head father to track down the mysterious and elusive director Charlie Buckwald (Ian Hutton). It turns out, Buckwald was hired by the unnamed studio to direct the horror film, Demonic, and during post-production he went a little off his rocker and became paranoid. The paranoia led to Buckwald stealing the finished film and dropping off the grid. Jack sees this endeavor as an opportunity. He can turn his assignment into a documentary, thus securing his way into a big time Hollywood deal. The only problem, Buckwald may have a good reason to be paranoid. Something truly demonic happened on set and it may cost Jack his life.
Auteur is yet another low budget faux-documentary, and like so many others in the genre it is a failure. The film is completely illogical. In my opinion, the worst sin a film in this genre can commit is having scenes in which there is no way a camera could have been present, and Auteur is full of those sequences. The most egregious has to be when Buckwald is completely alone in a restroom. Not only is it unexplainable how this footage was shot, but for some reason we can hear his inner thoughts. How is this possible? I cannot understand how a filmmaker, wanting to utilize the documentary format for their fictional film, chooses to disregard the conventions and internal logic of a documentary. A film like Woody Allen's Zelig works so well precisely because it is so realistic as a documentary. The film is more convincing and the fantastic story elements are believable because Allen follows the internal logic of documentary filmmaking. To me, not following the conventions makes the filmmaker, in this case director G. Cameron Romero, seem lazy.
The film had other logical problems, as well. Jack kept reinforcing that Buckwald was his childhood idol, however Hutton cannot be much more than five years older than Humphreys. I also could not understand why a studio head would rather send their son to recover the studio's property instead of suing Buckwald to get their movie back. It is not like he was hard to find, Jack found him on the first day of his search.
Another area where Auteur was a failure was with the acting. The entire cast is beyond bad, local semi-professional theatre bad. Hutton's Buckwald is every tired cliché of a disturbed genius. He is jittery, loud, rambling, itchy, etc. Hendricks as Jack is worse. He has the same mildly surprised look on his face the entire film. It was as if Hendricks was wearing a 'Broseph' mask, complete with backwards baseball cap. Madeline Meritt played Kate, a demonically possessed actress. She was ridiculous in film, Romero's only direction for her may have been for her to act like a drunk floozy. She never seemed evil, just sexually excited. My favorite performance was from Tom Sizemore as himself. He's top billed but only appears for about 10 minutes. It is a hoot watching him babble about nothing. He spends most of his screen time yelling at and insulting Hendricks. Sizemore's scenes never feel like they are a part of the film. His presences feels like a total afterthought.
Perhaps my biggest problem with the film was the hyperbolic praise heaped upon Buckwald. Multiple characters in the film stated his was among the greatest director to have ever lived. I know Buckwald is a fictional character but this bugged me. I do not want to believe there is a world where the greats are Welles, Bergman, Ozu, and Charlie Buckwald. The praise did not come off a believable. Actors said their lines but we as viewers have no clue why he's so great. It is never explained what he did so well, the film's characters never give any sort of analysis of Buckwald's work. We just know he made horror films.
Auteur is a horrible film. Nothing in the film makes sense and every line of dialogue is spoken in the same uninterested, monotone delivery. At least the film can stand as proof that talent is not hereditary. Director G. Cameron Romero has none of the talents of his father, George Romero. If I was daddy dearest, I would be ashamed.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Auteur is brought to DVD by MVD Visual. The release has a decent 1.78:1 image. The film's low budget is exposed by its cinematography, it is uninteresting with flat, pedestrian lighting. Because of these faults the image would never look amazing. MVD Visual's release is probably as good as this film will ever look.
The audio is Dolby Digital stereo and it is serviceable but problematic. The dialogue was mixed very low and I had to turn up the sound a bit higher than normal to make everything audible. Like so many straight-to-video releases, the disc did not have subtitles, however they would have been nice.
The only extra is a short trailer.
The Final Word:
I cannot imagine anyone liking this film. Everything about Auteur is a mess. I suppose if you want to see an agitated Tom Sizemore insult a chubby frat boy then this is the film for you.
