Coven (2000)

An alcohol/drug abuser re-examines his life until he nearly dies from an overdose. Then a friend convinces him to join a self-help group which turns out to be demonic.

Director:

Mark Borchardt

Writer:

Mark Borchardt

Stars:

Mark Borchardt, Tom Schimmels, Miriam Frost

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Mark Borchardt	...	Mike
Tom Schimmels	...	Steve
Miriam Frost	...	Sharon
Tommy Dallace	...	Doc McCoy
Robert Richard Jorge	...	Goodman
Sherrie Beaupre	...	Daesa
Jack Bennett	...	Group Member
Mark Nadolski	...	Group Member
Scott Berendt	...	Group Member
Barbara Zanger	...	Group Member
Donna McMaster	...	Group Member
Mike Schank	...	Group Member
Cindy Snyder	...	Group Member
Nancy Williams	...	Group Member
Wayne Buboise	...	Group Member

Storyline

An alcohol/drug abuser re-examines his life until he nearly dies from an overdose. Then a friend convinces him to join a self-help group which turns out to be demonic.

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Plot Keywords:

forest | elevator | car | occult | alcoholic | 

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Genres:

Short | Drama | Horror

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Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

31 March 2000 (USA)

Filming Locations:

Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Northwest Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

40 min

Color:

Black and White

Did You Know?

Trivia

After actor Tom Dallace delivers his lines in the "elevator sequence", a noticeably different voice is heard saying the line, "Hey, thanks a lot, man." The line was added in post production to fill in a moment of dead silence. Dallace was in Los Angeles shooting another movie and was unable to record the line himself, so an uncredited crew member dubbed the line instead.

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Goofs

Several actors' hairstyles change several times throughout the movie. This is the result of a shooting schedule that took several years.

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Quotes

Mike: Look, the last thing I wanna do is sit around with a bunch of motherfuckers with drinking problems... Listening to that trite monotony go on and on, hour after hour? That'll drive any fucker to drink!

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Connections

Referenced in American Movie (1999)

User Reviews

very interesting, especially after seeing American Movie

I'm not sure if I still would've loved Coven if I had not seen American Movie, which tracked how director Mark Borchardt spent more than three years and hundreds of man hours to make a film. What was this movie is revealed, sort of, during the course of American Movie, but only in snippets. By the end, when Chris Smith shows a quasi-trailer for Coven, one gets really hyped to watch the whole thing. Thankfully we all can thanks to it being featured on the DVD, and it's really quite impressive. It's shot with an eye for creativity and an odd sense of horror by Borchardt and he gets some crazy and intense performances from his actors, especially one (I forget his name) who looks like an Orson Welles love-child.

And yet, as enjoyable and intense as the movie becomes- about a writer who becomes involved in a rehab group that is really a coven of witches (some women some male)- I wonder now if I would've connected to it more if I had not seen Smith's film. One saw in that, for example, how Borchardt and his friends abused alcohol over the years, and especially how his friend Mike took far too many acid trips and became the slow-talking (though amiable) guy he is today. So, seeing those rehab scenes one gets a more personal sense from Borchardt after seeing the documentary (not to mention his love of Night of the Living Dead projected through in Coven via harrowing hand-held black and white cinematography on a cheap-ass camera, and funky music, and some nasty gore).

But if you do watch it first on the DVD, or find it online, it's still by itself a successful work of primitive art: an independent film that is crude and uncouth, and with some really bizarre, effective scenes like the one in the hospital elevator, or when Mark is in the woods and is surrounded by the men in black cloaks.