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Damon Packard
Director of Reflections of Evil
by Jenna Krystlof
Damon Packard is a filmmaker that doesn’t particularly like his biggest fans, a filmmaker that satirizes his greatest heroes. Damon Packard still laments the passing of the gutsy 1970’s, Hollywood’s halcyon days of risks and experimentation.
In early 2003, Packard completed his film, Reflections of Evil. He spent all the inheritance money his grandmother had given him on it–over $100,000. It’s an impressively unique film. To describe it in common terms would produce a long list of filmmakers (early Spielberg, Buñuel, Brakhage, Friedkin, Godard, to name a few), a fusion of genres (experimental horror, slapstick, surrealist nightmare, black comedy) and inadequate adjectives (intense, weird, exhilarating, hilarious, genius), ultimately more baffling than they are enlightening.
He distributed approximately 29,000 DVD copies of the film for free, leaving stacks in video stores and ATM kiosks. He sent thousands of copies to people somehow positioned in the entertainment industry. You see, he’d like a new job. His phone is in constant danger of being shut off, his car sucks and he needs it for his late hour job delivering medical supplies. He worked his ass off for years on this movie and is disappointed by the outcome.
“I was surprised by the total non-reaction [to Reflections of Evil],” Packard said. “I can’t imagine all these people picking up these copies in the weirdest places and not responding. I mean, how often in your life are you going to find a film like that lying in a newspaper rack in a health food store?”
Reflections of Evil follows Bob (played by Packard), an overweight watch peddler caught in a nightmare. He waddles through the streets of Los Angeles, continually missing busses, gorging himself on sweets and arguing with his caustic grandmother. He is an inept salesman and elicits anger from everyone he meets, never quite making enough money to get ahead. Throughout the movie, the spirit of his dead sister (who overdosed on PCP at Universal Studios) attempts to find him. She wants to take him on Schindler’s List: The Ride and into the afterlife.
When watching Reflections of Evil, it comes as no surprise that Packard didn’t have a script when he made the movie, just an outline. The plot is secondary, however, to Packard’s visual and aural mastery. It’s an experience akin to an acid trip: sometimes humorous, sometimes frightening, frequently confusing and almost always overwhelming.
The film has done fairly well on the independent festival circuit, winning him top prize, “Gold Publique” for “Most Groundbreaking Film” at Montreal’s Fantasia Fest and “Best of Fest” at both the Seattle Underground and Berkeley Film and Video Festivals. But, what the fuck?, he still doesn’t have a good job, and he’s been making films for over 20 years. It’s obvious that the man has talent, though there’s some debate as to whether he uses it for good or ill. His editing, for example, is extraordinary. He builds a pace throughout Reflections of Evil that wonderfully demonstrates the fear and anger of his character.
The Schindler’s List: The Ride sequence is evidence of Packard’s continuing fascination with Steven Spielberg. “There was a time in the early 80’s that I was so obsessed with Spielberg, that I’d go see his movies dozens and dozens of times,” he said. “I never got tired of them. I tossed some copies [of Reflections of Evil] in the bushes by his gate once. The gardener probably picked them up or something, or they’re still there…Like ten years from now I’ll meet him, ‘Hey, did you ever get that DVD?’ ‘No, I never…’ He’ll go out to his garden,and there’s a withered DVD there. ‘Oh, great, I want to watch this.’”
Packard is forced to take his favorite filmmakers with a grain of salt these days, however. He’s been disappointed with Spielberg’s more recent work, referring to Hook as the definitive point when the director started making bad films. Packard takes shots at George Lucas, too. He announces the death of Lucas’s art with the phrase, “George Lucas: 1944 – 1977,” in the credits of his film, The Untitled Star Wars Mockumentary.
Packard loves the daring American films that were made throughout the 70’s and respects the potential danger that filmmakers put themselves in at that time, both artistically and financially. “It seems like the best films are usually made under the worst circumstances,” Packard said. “Like the big ambitious movies where everything went wrong, and the director almost died because it was so exhausting. Those days are gone. Apocalypse Now is the perfect example, the last great ultra-ambitious film. That’ll never happen again–only in the 70’s.”
Given his interest in experimental film, in taking chances, it seems strange that Packard isn’t a fan of contemporary independent films. He watches them but rarely enjoys them much. He seems to be such a huge fan of 60’s and 70’s Hollywood because the films it produced weren’t only good cinema, but good cinema generally made by large studios. The popular films of the time were much more challenging to the audience than the popular films of today. Packard thinks moviemaking is too accessible these days; there are simply too many voices. He seems to grieve the death of quality big budget productions, not quality films in general.
Similarly, it seems that he’s not so much unhappy because there was no feedback to Reflections of Evil, whatsoever, but that much of the good feedback came from the wrong places.
Among his fans are musicians Henry Rollins, Sammy Hagar (offered his music for future projects) Robby Krieger of the Doors and Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull. (The last actually helped to sell Packard’s remaining DVDs, as he posted a glowing review of the film on his website.) It is, indeed, a strange mixture. Most of the Hollywood response comes via agents or simple angry phone calls asking to be removed from the mailing list (Packard sends the DVDs to home addresses).
Packard appreciates the praise he receives from people like cult director Jim Van Bebber (The Manson Family, Necrophagia), but doesn’t consider himself to be part of the “Jim Van Bebber crowd,” He said, “I’ve never been into that culture. A lot of the people who like the film are…I don’t know…these crazed artists from Xenia, Ohio, who like all those really sick movies.”
Since self-releasing Reflections of Evil, Packard has become friends with Sage Stallone, a horror film distributor and Sylvester’s son, who provides some of the more memorable celebrity reactions. He has quoted his father as saying, in reference to Packard, “This guy is really sick. No, I mean he is really sick; I wanted to put a fuckin’ ball-peen hammer in his head after awhile...” Sage also regularly places a new copy of the movie on his dad’s DVD rack. “Hey, it looks like you’ve got a copy of Reflections of Evil.,” he’ll say to the elder Stallone, while his confused father walks over to the rack, disgusted, “I thought I threw that thing away.”
Unfortunately, Packard has yet to get any response from Steven Spielberg or George Lucas’s camp. We’re a bit surprised that he still wants to, perhaps he hopes to lead them to redemption. Damon Packard is poor because he spent all his money making a film in a genre he doesn’t even like. He can barely scrounge together enough money to duplicate tapes and DVDs to sell on his website (which may be shut down any day), let alone make another movie. He still misses the 1970’s,the times he thinks can never be recreated, his golden days of cinema, when he was between the ages of 3 and 13, when they made “big ambitious movies” despite the difficult circumstances. Who knows, maybe Packard’s wrong, maybe those days can be recreated, maybe he’s already done it, or maybe he’ll have to wait until he’s in his 70’s.
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www.reflectionsofevil.com
Volume 2, Issue 1 contents |
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