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I remember reviewing Ewan Telford's "Apocalypse Oz" for Film Threat back
in 2006 when I was just grasping the whole seriousness of indie
filmmaking, and upon viewing the box for the DVD screener, I can recall
being quite excited to see what this slick sick little monster of a
short film would bring to my eyes. Lo and behold it is not so much a
satire since it's played tongue in cheek, it's not a spoof since it's
not played for laughs and it's not a remake since the film is only
thirty minutes in length. What it is is a demon child of two movie
masterpieces that director Ewan Telford decided to combine one day and
shocking enough, it fits better than we can imagine. Dorothy is a
Vietnamese anti-hero with a scowl burned on her face, Dorothy's polka
dot dress is just a bow on her hair, her ruby red slippers are a ruby
red car named "Ruby," the wicked witch is a militant racist sheriff,
Toto is just a yappy little shit handed a gruesome fate, and the Wizard
is in fact a white poet warlord who runs the land of Saigon.
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But that's only the tip of the
iceberg. In order to catch all of the nuances and little
Easter eggs thrown in to this maniacal short film, you'll
have to know both original films by heart and make a game
out of pointing out the props and references to the films
that Telford masterfully litters throughout the duration of
said short film. Alexandra Gizela is smoking as the
rebellious Asian warrior Dorothy Willard who, after a fight
with her abusive parents, is hit in the head with her window
during a vicious storm. |
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She's transferred in to Saigon where her
mystical Asian fairy is given her the task to find out the identity of
her family and bring down the Wizard hoping for some answers. Along the
way she meets Hunk (Billy Briggs simply grabs on to this role as this
inept surfer and plays well off of Gizela) a Scarecrow like Surfer who
aids her along the path down the steaming Yellow dirt road, and the two
encounter the racist Kilgore and his monkey like troopers as they try to
stop her from finding the Wizard and answers. M.C. Gainey gives a great
appearance here as the mythical Wizard, the ruler of the junkyard and
Dorothy's key to her true fate playing well off of Gizela who gives her
own sardonic twist to Dorothy and this hero altogether. Telford directs
with a slick grindhouse grit that keeps "Apocalypse Oz" from being a
cliché fan film and elevates the entire events to another level all on
its own. With some sharp editing, snappy dialogue, and a wicked surprise
ending, "Apocalypse Oz" is a brilliant little short that works as an
homage to "The Wizard of Oz" and "Apocalypse Now." If only all
filmmakers were this creative.
If
you're in to a twist on two literary and cinematic classics with a hefty
dose of punk rock and grindhouse flavoring, you'd best spend your time
watching "Apocalypse Oz," a wicked tongue in cheek action short that
takes the best of both worlds and has a hell of a time entertaining us
in the process.
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