You're not likely to see a movie script detailing the bizarre journey of two teens who, after drinking contaminated water, turn into monstrous zitheads with grotesque pustules atop their craniums, landing on the desk of some famous Hollywood movie producer's desk anytime soon. And that suits independent filmmaker Rusty Nails just fine.
Nails - a film and punk rock fanatic - wrote, directed, produced and also starred in his first full-length feature film entitled Acne, which will be featured in this year's 3rd annual Black Point Film Festival in Lake Geneva next week
"It's really an homage to French New Wave, film noir and 1950s and '60s horror and science fiction movies," the filmmaker explained about his offbeat movie. "And it's also a cynical comedy about conspiracy. It's really a mixture of all those different types of things. Although I really think that it comes out as something new unto itself."
This will be the Chicago resident's second film appearance at the festival. Last year his film Grethel & Hansel won Best Dramatic Short Film at the fest.
Nails' interest in film can be traced back to his family frequently moving when he was a young boy. "I traveled a lot when I was a kid," he remembered." My father was a policeman and we moved pretty often. I think this helped me [with my future filmmaking] by meeting all different types of people, but at the same time it was hard to make long lasting friendships. So a lot of times I would rely on fantasy kind of stuff. I was really fascinated by it."
When he was just nine he saw the 1966 science fiction film Fantastic Voyage for the first time on TV. "It was where Raquel Welch and the other actors were all shrunk down and traveled through the human body. That movie and The Wizard of Oz really made me think about the fantastic properties of film taking people to places that they've never been before."
Although he originally wanted to act, Nails soon realized in his early teens that Hollywood wouldn't be an easy place for an actor to get into. "I was to quick to figure out on my own that if I wanted to be in movies that I would have to make movies. So my mom gave me an old Super 8 camera when I was sixteen and I just started filming things and making small movies. I would just go and film different kinds of people on the street and anything that I thought was interesting."
Without like-minded friends and lack of equipment Nails decided to move to Chicago in the late '90s and enroll in film school at Columbia College. "It was there that I would meet most of my future crew people. In my second year of school I realized that I wanted to make a feature before I got out of college. I figured that once I was out I wouldn't have the access to the equipment."
Nails continued," At Columbia you're not supposed to make features, but I actually decided to break that law and make one, but pretend that it was a short."
That movie was Acne, but it was far from a weekend school project. In fact, it took closer to five years and $14,000 to finalize the project. "I grew up a poor kid. So most of life I was making, at most, two-hundred-and-fifty bucks a week. Fortunately though I got grants for college. But as far as making the film, I didn't have anybody that I could borrow the money from. I didn't have a Hollywood cousin or a well off uncle or anything like that. The summer before I started making the movie, I was a bag-boy when I was still in Boston. I was staying at friend's place where I didn't have to pay rent at the time, so I was able to save my bag-boy earnings for a whole summer. I was hoping that $3,000 would be the budget of the film. But I also thought the film was only going to take three weeks to make."
Nails continued, "I was spending every bit I had for the next few years on the film. Thankfully I had a Hare Krishna friend who gave me a $1,000 when he was giving up all of his monetary gains. I had yard sales almost every week, selling anything I could get my hands on - most of my CDs and records, books from the dumpster and things like that. I was pretty driven and pretty mad. I became sort of Hamlet in relation to the film. I was brutally poor for years, all for the film.
Nails also organizes the Moveside Film Festival, which, according to the director, is the largest short film festival in the country. The festival, which travels throughout the U.S., is celebrating its third anniversary this year. Previous guest hosts have included high-profile filmmakers such as John Waters and Jim Jarmusch. This year's host will be horror master George Romero. "Part of our mission, " explained Nails, "is to bring people that we want to see. All three of our guest hosts were people that we wanted to see. We felt that if someone else brought them to town it'd probably be a more expensive event and you wouldn't get as much. But with this we'll be showing two features, along with sort films and the guest hosts, all for nine or ten dollars."
While most of Nails' previous work has had a dark, bizarre edge to it, he's currently doing post-production on his next feature film, Highway Robbery, a decidedly more straightforward documentary about the government seizing a Rockford resident's property to build a highway on.
With so much on this young movie maverick's plate, it's a wonder he has the time to actually attend so many other film festivals, such as Black Point next week. "Its really fun coming up there," he stated about the Lake Geneva film festival. "The people that run Black Point are really very inviting and sweet. And last year the audience was good and they seemed very receptive."
There will be a special screening of Rusty Nails' film Acne, preceded by his short film The Ramones and I on Sunday, April 25, 8:00 p.m. at Horticultural Hall, 330 Broad St., Lake Geneva. For more information log onto www.bpff.com