Natural Selection

Natural Selection is a zany romp though a small east Texas town. Its frightened and sometimes frightening characters are drawn right out Jerry Springer's guest list. This film pokes fun at almost every aspect of life in the small towns all over east Texas.

The movie starts as a documentary about a serial killer, "Citizen Willie". In the opening scenes we get to meet three of Willie's cousins. The cousins are a clear (and hilariously frenetic) sign that all is not well in Willie's gene pool.

The movie cuts between the narrative of the story, and the documentary in a way that leaves you either on the edge of your seat or doubled over with laughter.

The best character in this film has got to be Willie's psychotic mother. We can get a real insight into what it takes to completely destroy a child's developing mind by watching this nutty bi***. If she's not pantomiming masturbation she's using a toothpick to remove the casualties of her continuing war on the fly population from a battered filthy flyswatter. To say this film is over the top is to put it mildly. Wimpy little mama's boys/girls need not apply. The laughs that come from this marvelously acted and written film will have you grabbing for your asthma inhaler (whether or not you are so afflicted).

I love this movie, which, dare I say, with some well deserved luck, could be the "Blair Witch" of comedy. "Natural Selection" is a movie within a movie about a good ole boy gone very very bad in a small Texas town. Willie Dickenson is a fugitive serial killer who's body count stands at eight. A documentary filmmaker interviews the cops, the neighbors, the family, the groupies, and the victims' parents and attempts to solve the riddle of Willie, i.e., "what makes a time bomb tick?"

"Natural Selection" is an original, hilarious satire that never plays it safe. It skewers our perverse obsession with twisted hero worship. After all, in this country we don't know what to make of the notorious, so we just make them celebrities. There's so much to like about this indie underdog: the look-- eye candy way beyond the budget; the sensibility-- yes, Virginia, a movie about a cold-blooded killer can actually be at its heart warm and homespun; the soundtrack-- featuring welcome contributions from the greatly underappreciated Texas rocker Charlie Sexton; and especially the inspired performances from a tremendously eclectic cast.

Michael Bowen, as Willie, gives a complex and unbelievably delicate performance. As a father-to-be, he is a man who is capable of tenderness, but is driven by his demons to cold-blooded murder. Here's a man who mails his victims heads, yet we feel a measure of sympathy for him. That's acting. David Carradine delivers a wonderful, comic performance unlike any you've ever seen as a wacko FBI agent on Willie's trail. NewsRadio's Stephen Root is as funny as he's ever been--and that's damn funny--as a victim's father, and proves once again that in comedy, monkeys are always hilarious. And veteran character actor Bob Balaban is a riot as a crackpot psychiatrist with an ego bigger than Texas. And just trust me about Willie's cousins. You can't go wrong with rednecks, beer and shotguns either.

"Natural Selection" is a wonderful surprise. Scene after scene, it's like you're scooping up another unexpected gem.

WARNING - CERTAIN PLOT LINES MAY BE REVEALED IN THESE COMMENTS.

A few weeks ago, I attended an advance screening of NATURAL SELECTION. As key grip on the picture, my comments may seem rather slanted, but I feel compelled to share a few thoughts. I shall make every attempt to be objective.

With a quirky, provocative script by BJ Burrow and Allen Odom as his foundation, Bristol has built a crafty film. Even though I was on the crew and watched the scenes as they were being shot, I shall have to watch the final cut several times before I catch all of the surprises that the film offers. It moves along at a brisk pace, and takes us on a wild ride.

In a nutshell, NATURAL SELECTION is a story of boy meets serial killer, boy copies serial killer, cop stalks serial killer, and all hell breaks loose in every conceivable direction.

NATURAL SELECTION wrung from me many different reactions as I watched the story unfold before me. A moment after laughing hysterically at one of the film's many moments of curious comedy, I would find myself jumping involuntarily at one of its startling little twists.

The story revolves around a faux TV documentary which follows a series of killings by Bowen's character, "Willie," and its impact on a small town.

The body of the film chronicles the changes that are inflicted upon the town and its people under the focus of the media.

One of the most compelling moments is a pivotal scene between Bowen and Carradine, in the seedy little motel where Carradine's character, an FBI agent gone over the edge, eventually meets his end. The dichotomy between these two actors - half brothers, incidentally - is palpable.

After the chilling scene in which Carradine's "Dehoven" character is brutally killed, actress Laura House whips us right back into laughter mode. As the motel's housekeeper, she basks in second-hand fame before the camera of the "documentary" crew and leaves the audience with the guilty pleasure of another good howl.

As Dehoven, Carradine demonstrates his skills as one of the great Hollywood journeymen. Throughout the film, I was torn between pity for Dehoven's delusional existence, and biting myself in the lip to keep from laughing at the poor guy's Oliver Hardy-like awkwardness as he shadows Willie. One moment the stammering nebbish, the obsessed predator the next, Dehoven is a joy to watch.

Known for years as "Ed," the young Indian filmmaker in "Northern Exposure," Darren Burrows turns in a riveting portrayal as a small-town guy, transformed by the media attention that the killings have brought to his little berg. He explodes from one emotion to another with chilling fluidity and, with Bowen, emotes both rail-gripping terror and side-busting laughter during their final confrontation.

The lynch pin of the cast is Detective Richards, played by Joe Unger. Richards is the gruff, jaded cop, numbed by a career full of murder investigations, and a downright snarling contempt of the media. With a matter-of-fact take on the situation, punctuated by several well-chosen expletives, we follow this tough-ass cop through the "documentary" and the body of the film as he pulls the story together.

The "TV documentary" is where cameos by such talent as Root, Balaban and Laura House really shine. These performances are beyond excellent as they lead us through the maze and deliver us to its unexpected exit. Root, in particular, is captivating as the father of one of Willie's victims. His turn before the camera is, at the same time, poignant and riotously funny.

The "MVP" of the NATURAL SELECTION production crew has to be Rhet W. Bear, the director of photography. This young cinematographer and his minimalist style gave director Bristol the ideal paint with which to create his witty picture of the Burrow/Odom screenplay.

Again, as one of the film's department heads, it is difficult to be as objective as I would like. Still, I have to say that the film has a bright future ahead of it. NATURAL SELECTION is haunting and hilarious at the same time. It is a complex film which provides a stimulating counterpart to many contemporary works.

I gauge a film by the number of times it would have been okay to skip out to the lobby for a nine-dollar hot dog. When you go see NATURAL SELECTION, I suggest that you eat first.

One thing's for sure. You'll never look at your mailbox the same way again!

David Carradine (yes, the Kung Fu Carradine) plays a major role in this film, and, while he brings considerable talent to the cast -- perhaps the only talent -- much of the time he looks like an actor desperately seeking direction. I feel a little sorry for him. Carradine plays a maverick FBI agent who has gone a little haywire from brushing up against the madness of his serial killer quarry. He stays in a motel room lined with pages torn from a Bible -- a reference to The Omen in which a priest, driven mad by his quest for to confront and battle the Ultimate Evil, lives in a Bible page-lined cell. Carradine's delusional special agent sees his quarry going into a horrifically fast seizures, much like the terrifying spasms of the figures haunting the protagonist in Jacob's Ladder. There are, perhaps, hints of Pulp Fiction here and there as well. Yet these allusions are not enough to save the film -- if anything, they seem to be adolescent expressions of adulation rather than homage to the filmmaker's influences.

I saw this movie on Showtime recently and I had a ball. Sometimes it was a little rough around the edges, but I laughed a lot. Hell, the monster gags even freaked me out. Very creative film. It is nice to see that small independent genre films can still find an audience. Check it out when you can.