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^Festival of cheese filmmaking presents student films to A&M
BY HEATHER BRONDY
The Battalion
F or a little pre-Rocky Horror Hal
loween weekend fun, MSCs
Cephid Variable will offer stu
dents a film festival with some mon
ster-mash flavor. Oct. 29 kicks off the
third annual “Schloctoberfest”, a
weekend celebration of “schlock,”
or rather, those obnoxious horror
films everyone loves to hate. Stu
dents are asked to turn in their own
amateur schlock films for a contest
and a chance to win the Carl of
Chthulu Award, created by Cephid
Variable.
Marvin Miller, director of the
event and a senior journalism major,
said the weekend is dedicated to stu
dent and other notorious schlock
footage.
“At 7 p.m. on Friday night in Hal-
bouty 101, we’re going to be show
ing last year’s and the previous
year’s entries, as well as an histori
cal [documentary] on schlock
movies,” Miller said. “Then on Sat
urday morning at 11 a.m., we’re go
ing to show schlock movies until
about three or four in the afternoon.
“Later that night, at 7 p.m., we’re
going to have entries for this year
viewed and judged for prizes.”
Dave Salmon, adviser for MSC
Town Hall and Cephid Variable, said
he defines schlock as anything so
poor it is an accidental gem.
“The whole idea behind
schlock is that there are some
movies that are so bad, they’re
good,” Miller said. “Movies like
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, Evil
Dead, basically all those cheesy
low-budget movies that are so pa
thetic they’re entertaining.”
Student entries from the past
have tended to lean strongly toward
ridiculous humor, rather than guts
and gore. Nathan Weston, a senior
english major, said that his film led
to some embarrassing moments.
“We did a thing called This Movie
Socks,” Weston said. “What we did
was take a home video camera,
some sock puppets, a couple of su
per soakers and my high school let
ter jacket and, well, I ended up in a
black burlap sack pretending I was
the giant leader of evil socks. It was
actually pretty embarrassing, now
that I think back on it.”
Salmon said his favorite entry
also incorporated stockings.
“Honestly, they’re all pretty hu
morous,” Salmon said. “But there
was this one with these two sock
puppets in a make-shift toy car,
and the guys who put it together
used the sound track from Fear
and Loathing In Las Vegas. They
had these two sock puppets going
on the road, and if you’ve ever
seen Fear and Loathing then it
was just hilarious.”
Miller said his favorites did not re
volve around sock puppets.
“I really liked The Hunt For Red
October vs. Titanic,” Miller said.
“That was a real good one. They had
Red October fight Titanic and sink it.
And of course, I like my film, called
Star Story. It’s a trilogy using toys
and stop story animation. In this
year’s film we find out why Darth
Vador turned evil.”
If it does not sound like all the
plots are horror stories, it is because
they do not all have to be. Salmon
said the film genre includes all
ranges of schlock, like science fiction
and fantasy.
“They’d [Cephid Variable] like
the movies to cover all areas, main
ly horror, science fiction, and fanta
sy,” Salmon said. “Usually they’re
pretty open to whatever’s brought
in, though of course some rules do
apply. We reserve the right to screen
the films and decide what’s appro
priate for viewing and what’s not.”
The annual schlock fest was es
tablished three years ago by Eric
Liga. Miller said the goal was to in
spire students to use their home
video cameras and have some fun
mocking cheesy films.
L ;
“We wanted to give students
the opportunity to make and
show movies” Miller said.
“Schlock films seemed like the
[most fun] type to do.”
Jarid Teslow, an annual partic
ipant and senior chemistry major,
said the schlock genre is meant to
make people laugh.
“These d-grade horror films are
movies we all watch to get a good
laugh rather than a good scare,”
Teslow said. “And Schlockotber-
fest is a survey of this type of bad
film making, or rather, a cross sec
tion of the best of the worst.
“They’re bad films with bad ef
fects but have a few redeeming
qualities we have to recognize;
otherwise, they wouldn’t still be
around today. There’s almost a
cult aspect to the whole genre.”
For students who would like to
try and receive the annual award,
videos must be turned into the
Cephid Variable cube in the Student
Programs Office Wednesday, Oct.27
by 8 p.m. They will be
open for viewing and judg
ing on Oct.30 at 7 p.m.
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