Jonny Numb

Family Snapshot (2021)

[131 minutes. Director: Chris Woods]

With Family Snapshot, Icon Studios founder Chris Woods makes a distinct choice to forego the in-your-face nudity, Porky’s-style humor, and buckets of gore which has distinguished his other cinematic offerings. Straight-faced and serious throughout, this is easily the best thing I’ve seen from the writer-director, who seems inspired – at least somewhat – by the flashback scenes from American History X. Jonathan Oswald, Jr. (Eight the Chosen One) is an ex-con struggling to find gainful employment when, one day, he’s informed his white supremacist father, Jonathan Sr. (Bob Glazier) has been released after a long prison sentence. When father and son reunite, Jr. – attempting to reform his life with the aid of a sympathetic social worker (Nico Hicks) – finds himself falling under the influence of his persuasive paterfamilias and drawn into a plot to carry out a mass shooting at an open-air pavilion. A shades-of-gray character study shot in crisp black and white, Family Snapshot isn’t perfect – I could’ve done without Jr.’s dream sequences that center around a televangelist (Joel D. Wynkoop) and his wife (M. Catherine Wynkoop) – but it is a strong and surprising dramatic outing. The performances are convincing and compelling throughout, with Eight the Chosen One capturing the struggle of a man wanting to do the right thing, but ripped apart by his ingrained prejudices and subservience to his father. Glazier, an Icon Studios/Gatorblade Films/Sleaze Box mainstay, is quite effective as a soft-spoken yet toxic lifer who can’t admit that his time as a criminal mastermind has passed. If you like your conflicts messy and your morality even messier, Family Snapshot is worth the epic 131-minute sit.

(3.5 out of 5 stars)

Frog Pimp (2023)

[16 minutes. Director: Gwendolyn Bastien]

I stumbled across the Frog Pimp Indiegogo campaign by accident while browsing Twitter one day, and the title baffled me in such a good way that I pledged some cash to get the Blu-ray. And, for what it’s worth, the end result delivers a brief blast of bizarreness that’s professionally filmed and performed (albeit on a clearly small budget). Delightfully crude and strange, it follows a film crew documenting the titular character (Domenic Kim) – decked out in a fuzzy frog cap – who truly believes he and his stable of hookers are scaly-skinned amphibians. No reason is given for this logic; nor is any needed. When his most popular girl, Lolli (Madi Collins), goes missing, he embarks on a city-wide quest to get her back. Meanwhile, Lolli uses her physical charms to lure and butcher johns for their cash. The two characters find themselves on a sleazy and darkly funny collision course. Maybe I should be careful what I wish for, but the promise of this short had me wanting a feature-length tale from the Frog Pimp universe – this strain of mental illness is ripe for further cinematic exploration.

(3 out of 5 stars)