Recently selected to the 2024 RiverRun Film Festival.
Like a Southern fried “Donnie Darko,” writer/director Jethro Waters’s darkly comic dissection of America and masculinity is truly one of the most unique and bizarre dark comedies to come out of the independent circuit. I don’t think audiences are ready for what someone like Waters has in store, placing America’s current social climate up to a big lens and lending some insight in to the lunacy of it all, and how the lunacy has become the new norm.
A hunter returns home to North Carolina with a mysterious green case. Following the death of his mother, he moves back into the family home where his mind begins to disintegrate. Stalked by divine voices and unholy visions, guided by disquiet, his mother’s hand written riddles and strange visitors including a cable man, a mummified cat, zealous neighbors, and a killer, further complicate an already splintering mind.
Director/Writer Waters explains how the “Gunfighter Paradise” is about the “othering” of our neighbors, and his focus on our protagonist initially makes us think that he’s an anomaly when in reality he’s just one of what’s become the norm. It’s a society prepared for we’re not quite sure, and ready to pull the trigger and initiate combat on those we’re not too educated on. All we know we’ve been programmed to be as paranoid as possible, and Stoner is only keeping up with everyone else at this point. “Gunfighter Paradise” is a semi-autobiographical film by Waters whose entire centerpiece of his narrative is the inherent paranoia of something being amidst.
He injects slow doses of paranoia and anxiety in to the audience, constantly cutting to what could be considered bad omens. From murderous hit men, to mummified cats, and trigger happy neighbors guarding their houses for—some reason or another, “Gunfighter Paradise” delights in its darkly comic look at our creeping paranoia. Through it all, star Braz Cubas narrates a majority of “Gunfighter Paradise” dwelling over a lot of his own life, his deteriorating mental state, and how a lot of his experiences have made him more or less a man.
Cubas really is a strong performer who plays everything absolutely deadpan, struggling to make sense of his environment. And in many ways he’s also trying to make sense of his own being. Character Stoner and creator Waters are constantly taking steps back to explore and de-construct the Southern backdrop, as well as how smaller once popular ideologies and rituals have come to somewhat destroy our brains in many regards. Although it sounds very heavy in subject matter, Waters is very good in balancing these ideas with a dark, weird, and absolutely engaging drama comedy.
Jethro Waters wants to take you in a total mind fuck, batshit insane trip and for folks that submit themselves to what he has to offer, it’s quite an entertaining ride from such a unique creative voice.