Forget Cannes, and tell Sundance to go jump in a river. For local cinephiles with a yen for the bizarre and a taste for after-midnight popcorn, the most tantalizing cinematic gantlet of the year is the Boston Underground Film Festival. The festival, known as Buff to its devotees, returns to The Brattle Theatre on Wednesday and holds court through Sunday, showcasing along the way 11 new features, two repertory restorations, dozens of short films and countless other surprises. If you find yourself Buff-curious but don’t know where to begin, read on as we guide you through the madness.
Day One: Buff’s opening-night selection is always a doozie – previous years’ picks include “Hail Satan?” (2019), Penny Lane’s documentary about Salem’s Satanic Temple, and the newly minted cult classic “Dinner in America” (2020) – and this year’s looks to be no exception. Lorcan Finnegan’s “The Surfer” is an Ozploitation revenge thriller in which an American family man (Nicolas Cage, in what the program notes describe as a full-bore “Cage Unleashed” performance) seeks to reclaim his dignity from a gang of violent Aussie surf-bros. It’s followed by a classic Buff rediscovery in Enrique Gómez Vadillo’s homoerotic 1991 Mexican melodrama “Muerte en la Playa,” remastered in all its pulpy, telenovelistic glory.
Day Two: Thursday brings a trio of very different spins on the horror genre. Alexandre O. Philippe’s “Chain Reaction,” the only documentary in this year’s festival, is a video essay in which five diverse notables – comedian Patton Oswalt, filmmakers Karyn Kusama and Takashi Miike, film critic and historian Alexandra Heller Nicholas and horror legend Stephen King – muse on their shared fascination with Tobe Hooper’s macabre 1974 masterpiece “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.” We jump to the other side of the pond for Aislinn Clarke’s Irish-language folk-horror chiller “Fréwaka,” about a recluse convinced she’s been tormented her whole life by faeries. In the late-night weirdo slot is “Vulcanizadora,” the new 16 mm whatzit from cult filmmaker Joel Potrykus, in which a pair of slacker buddies venture into the woods to conduct a mysterious ritual.
Day Three: Friday is bookended by two of Buff’s most beloved recurring shorts programs. “Dunwich Horrors” brings together the latest and greatest New England-produced horror stories – and, more often than not, their makers, making this one of the most reliably energetic screenings of the fest – and the infamous “Trigger Warnings,” a midnight mass of transgressive and gleefully offensive shorts not for the faint of heart. In between are the East Coast premieres of Stefan MacDonald-Labelle’s microbudget nightmare comedy “Head Like a Hole” (followed by a live Q&A with the director) and Emilie Blichfeldt’s dark Norwegian fairy tale “The Ugly Stepsister.”
Day Four: Saturday is the unofficial centerpiece of the festival, with two of this year’s most hotly anticipated screenings. At 6:45 p.m. is the world premiere of “Alma & the Wolf” from director Michael Patrick Jann. Jann, perhaps best known as an alum of the beloved MTV sketch comedy show “The State” and director of the cult classic “Drop Dead Gorgeous” (1999), attends to unpack his latest mind-bending horror show, along with the film’s star (and Michael’s son) Lukas Jann. Stick around for a new 4K restoration of the legendary 1985 splatter comedy “Re-Animator,” with a special appearance by star (and perennial scream queen) Barbara Crampton. Rounding out the day are Karan Kandhari’s pitch-black comedy “Sister Midnight”; the annual “Sound + Vision” program of independent music videos; “Hey Folks! It’s the Intermission Time Mixtape,” a shotgun blast of weird and wonderful ephemera from the vaults of Something Weird Video and the American Genre Film Archive; and this year’s block of comedy shorts, “Love to Love You Maybe.”
Day Five: Buff’s final day begins with two more programs of shorts, “Ragdoll Dance,” this year’s selection of underground animation, and “Must Have Got Lost,” which compiles all the shorts that didn’t quite fit into the other programs but were too good to leave out. The festival’s final three shorts, meanwhile, are a perfect encapsulation of Buff’s trademark eclecticism: Yûta Shimotsu’s “Best Wishes to All,” a haunting mix of Japanese folk and body horror; Annapurna Sriram’s queer punk fantasia “Fucktoys” (with a Q&A from Sriram and actor Sadie Scott); and this year’s closing selection, Yang Li’s hypermaximalist time-travel beat-em-up “Escape from the 21st Century.” True to its name, Buff is some strong stuff – but, even after five rounds in the ring with it, you’ll be counting down the days until next year’s insanity.
Oscar Goff is a writer and film critic based in Somerville. He is film editor and senior critic for the Boston Hassle and his work has appeared in the monthly Boston Compass newspaper and publications such as WBUR’s The ARTery and iHeartNoise. He is a member of the Boston Society of Film Critics, the Boston Online Film Critics Association, and the Online Film Critics Society.
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