Festival/Critical Hit LAGUNA AVE. Continues U.S. & U.K. Run at ANOTHER HOLE IN THE HEAD (December 1-15), CHRISTMAS HORROR NIGHTS (December 10-11), SICK ‘N’ WRONG FILM FESTIVAL (December 10-12), and FILMOCRACY FEST (December 9-12)
LAGUNA AVE. will play at four festivals this weekend: virtually at San Francisco-based Another Hole in the Head; virtually at Christmas Horror Nights, presented by Manchester-based GrimmFest and sponsored by the UK’s Horror Channel; in person and virtually at Orlando-based Sick ‘N’ Wrong Film Festival; and in person and virtually at Los Angeles-based Filmocracy Fest. This David Buchanan-directed DIY gender/genre-bending slacker lo-fi-sci-fi horror comedy defies easy description, following one man’s mystical misadventures in and surrounding a rambling Echo Park apartment. “A film found on a trash heap after the apocalypse,” says Buchanan, “cheap but ambitious, sleazy yet intellectual, funny and dark.”
Starring Russell Steinberg (ADVENTURELAND, DAY OUT OF DAYS, BELOW THE BELT [as “Johnny Fayva”]) as Russell, a middle-aged, burned-out TV editor with a prosthetic hand who futilely searches for work in Hollywood’s brutal, exploitative underbelly. His former boss (Paul Papadeas [AN INNOCENT KISS]) owes him money, his partner Rita (Stephanie Brait) is indifferent, always out of town and inaccessible, and his new downstairs neighbor Gary (Jamie Hall/James Markham Hall Jr. [NEIGHBORS]) keeps him awake at night with mysterious, disturbing noises. But everything changes one evening when Gary pays Russell a visit and introduces him to his sinister world of renegade accelerationism and a collection of outrageous, unstable but captivating fellow travelers and co-conspirators.
