Shared Darkness

Modesty has its place in film, as much as Hollywood studio filmmaking would like to wallpaper over that fact, with noise and computer-generated effects. Case in point: The Kitchen, an amiable little low-budget, Los Angeles-set comedy that takes its name from the self-restricted party setting of its chatty young adult angst.



Neither groundbreaking nor overly pretentious in its aims, The Kitchen simply cycles through the talky, sometimes inebriated fallout from emotional waffling and various bad decisions, but does so with enough charm and aplomb to win over viewers. Penned by Jim Beggarly and directed by Ishai Setton, the film centers around a 30th birthday party for Jennifer (That ’70s Show‘s Laura Prepon), who’s on the precipice of much change with a new job and an oven-fresh split from her philandering boyfriend Paul (Bryan Greenberg). While various casual acquaintances drift in and out, Jennifer’s cynical sister Penny (Dreama Walker) makes folks uncomfortable with an inappropriate announcement, and Kenny (Tate Ellington) and nervous party-planner Stan (Matt Bush), respectively, nurse unrequited crushes on Penny and Jennifer.

Even as a douchebag, Paul is problematically written, and Greenberg’s smarmy, one-track performance doesn’t do the material a lot of favors. Still, the vast majority of the acting here is playful and engaging (in addition to the aforementioned players, Jillian Clare makes a solid impression as a ditzy dropped-off girlfriend, while Amber Stevens and Pepper Binkley grapple with guilt, or the lack thereof), and a good fit with the material, which is of the psychologically wheels-spinning variety. If it doesn’t achieve the high-bar pleasures of Whit Stillman, neither does The Kitchen embarass itself. It’s simple, fun and appealing, in its own little self-contained way, and sometimes that’s enough.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, The Kitchen comes to DVD presented in 16×9 widescreen aspect ratio, with 5.1 surround sound and 2.0 stereo audio tracks that more than adequately handle the movie’s rather meager and straightforward sound design. Five deleted scenes run about five-and-a-half minutes, and there are trailers for The Scenesters and three other films. The meatier supplemental features, however, arrive by way of an amusing five-minute bit in which cinematographer Josh Sileen basically cuckolds director Ishai Setton, resulting in a Christian Bale reference. There’s also a two-minute mock cooking show gag with Setton and Bush, and a seven-minute-plus making-of featurette, the latter of which includes cast interviews which spotlight the many animals (dog, turtle, parrot) on set. To purchase the DVD via Half, click here; if Amazon is your thing, meanwhile, click here. Or go brick-and-mortar retail — seriously, I won’t mock you or tell anyone. B (Movie) B (Disc)

Sexcula, a 1974 Canadian sexploitation import being presented on DVD for the first time after having been assumed for many years to be lost, has a rather amazing story at its core. Unfortunately, none of that is really on screen. The Argo-type version of this tale — the story behind the story, of its actual making and subsequent abandonment — would make for an interesting period piece seriocomedy. Sexcula, though, is just kind of a baffling mess.

The film nominally uses the framing device of an old diary being discovered and read, and then spins back in time to — again, sort of — tell the tale of a female doctor (Jamie Orlando) who’s created a sex slave, Frank (John Alexander), who has trouble sustaining an erection. So she… calls in the titular family member (Debbie Collins) for help? There’s also a striptease-and-grind sequence involving a gorilla, plus a deformed hunchback, Orgie (Tim Lowery), who runs around wanting to dry-hump the female sex-bot (Marie McLeod) that the good doctor Fellatingstein has stashed over in the corner.

Directed by John Holbrook under the pseudonym of Bob Hollowich, Sexcula sounds a bit like a campy, totally deranged romp, I realize. And for roughly its first half-hour, when it’s more of a stylized (albeit terribly acted) softcore romp attempting to poke fun at horror conventions (minus the whole gorilla thing, which doesn’t track), it is. The dialogue is of course terrible (“Listen, Frank — this may be your last opportunity to understand. My cousin Countess Sexcula of Transylvania is an expert at erotic, sensual… uhh, well, she’s basically a hooker”), and delivered in wooden fashion. At a certain point, though, things go off the rails. The story is more or less abandoned, and the fleeting glimpses of hardcore action that marked the first half of the movie give way to an explicit, wedding-set foursome that unfolds over fifteen-plus minutes… during which, inexplicably, cameramen and grips eventually also just wander into frame.

The story behind the movie’s completion (this more hardcore bit was apparently part of a separate, reconvened shoot), its awkward single public screening, and eventual discovery and rendering to the digital format (the transfer for the Sexcula DVD was struck from the single remaining theatrical print, stored in the basement of the Canadian Film Archives) is a long and winding one, recounted in part in a textual accompaniment to this release’s packaging (more info still is available on the Interwebs). Maybe someone can write that story and slip a script to Ben Affleck… or maybe Larry Clark?

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Sexcula comes to DVD via the fine folks at Impulse Pictures, presented in 1.33:1 full frame, with a 2.0 mono audio track that works fine for the meager aural demands of such a production. Its static menu screen yields to a similarly static screen with a dozen chapter stops, and while there is a copy of the movie’s trailer, the only other supplemental feature is a two-sided liner notes sleeve with a solid little essay of historical framing by Dmitrios Otos and an amusing cartoon by Rick Trembles. For period piece cult completists, there may be something worthy of exploration here; for less specialized audiences, however, this isn’t the horror titillation for which you’re looking. To purchase the Sexcula DVD, click here. D (Movie) C (Disc)