You know those movies where a town gets together to make a movie, and everyone has a great time. Like The Amateurs or Be Kind Rewind. Well, this is the real deal, a film made in and by the town of Yachats, Oregon!
And, interestingly, I almost wrote the script for this film.
I was just starting out as a reporter in Oregon in 2008 when I wrote this story for the South Lincoln County News about producer/director Burgundy Featherkile, Yachats planning commission, readying this movie they wanted to do:
http://www.southlincolncountynews.com/fe_view_article_window.php?story_id=541&page_id=72&heading=0
Featherkile said she was looking for volunteer crew and actors. All they had was a title, the idea that it would be a 50s monster movie deal, the lead would be a zany librarian, and the monster would be a piece of bric-a-brac, a starfish-shaped candle holder.
I actually started a script. I was thinking Night Fright, with a sheriff and disappearances and this space star that disintegrated people. Plastic skeletons, yeah! But then Featherkile kept adding other novelty items to appear in the film. She viewed Robert Rodriguez's early success as some sort of gimmick. Meanwhile, I had to concentrate on finding a full-time job, which I desperately needed. So, I gracefully resigned.
Two years later, the film became available on Amazon through CreateSpace. Hooray!
The film is about this ghoul that emerges from a tidal pool in Yachats, a town nestled between the Pacific Ocean and some mountains on the Oregon coast. People walking dogs along the sandy beach, teens hanging out, or people having picnics in the bracing, chilly breeze are being attacked. Awkward teen boy Klaus (Jordan Ostrum), who clips on ties to his t-shirts, visits the town librarian, who is named Librarian (Jessica Dyson).
"Hello, Librarian," he says. He tells her about a hat he found, and how there's slime everywhere. A visit to the town's actual City Hall, they get records indicating there was an old military base there during World War II. At home, Klaus, who lacks self-confidence, says he wants to join the ukulele club, and his grandma Phoebe (Victoria Lambert) encourages him. Phoebe is later informed by a forest mystic that bad things are going to happen.
Librarian tries to warn everyone, but they're dubious, hurting her feelings. But soon, the town is gripped in Ghoul From the Tidal Pool fever! Green slime is turning up everywhere. A delightfully drunk scientist tells Klaus that its just salt and cobalt, "two of the most pantywaist isotopes I know."
Klaus visits The General (Marie Green), who ran the base that was there long ago. She's concerned, too. "Time to get out the nukes! No point in messing around!" she argues. Patrols are formed to look for more of the green slime and find this thing. "Is it radioactive?" one lady asks. "Probably!" Phoebe warns.
The people of the town live in fear, the kind of fear where they go about their normal small town lives but instead of complaining about the weather or road construction, they complain about ghoul attacks. If you touch the slime, you die. That happens to a member of the ghoul patrol, who crumbles over and dies during their meeting. "Don't touch the slime or you know what will happen," Phoebe says, pointing down faintly at the slumped over body next to her.
In one scene, a group of citizens runs into a garage that has a kitty cat door. One friend isn't so lucky, and he starts oozing into the garage. Through a tube. Being shoveled in by someone outside. It's that kind of cheesy film.
A lot of time is devoted with random townspeople, whoever was free, talking about what they're going to do about the ghouls. People chat, but then see something "over there" and recoil like they're being attacked and then they're gone. We only sometimes see the "monster" on strings on the strike.
Other stuff happens, without the plot progressing. Phoebe disappears, and Klaus is worried. More slime. The Librarian is actually absent for most of the film. By the end, though, Phoebe returns, and the evil General is exposed!
Klaus figures out the solution, and tells Librarian that all you need to defeat the slime and the ghoul is fresh water (as opposed to salt water). "Get anything you can!" Phoebe calls. "Ice cubes, lemonade, ice tea. Ice tea with mint!" One patrol runs around just spraying ghouls. Our heroes confront the evil General, her finger on a doomsday (Office Max "Easy") button, but she's defeated by her own insane monster, which is resting on the floor. Done, everyone can just relax and go back to their idyllic, Oregon coast existence.
The film stinks, no doubt. Actors look at the camera, at their lines on pages in front of them, the editing is sloppy, and the film has a fuzzy look like their dinky home digital camera can't get into focus. It feels like a 50s monster movie, but more like Giant Gila Monster and less like Plan 9 From Outer Space. They forgot to include the monster, anyway. The script is unfocused, and the film more often that not meanders. A lot feels like filter. It's not awful like Common Senses, though.
The film is damn charming and naive, and has a lot of hilariously insane dialogue. Plus, cameo by Rick Schultze!
It's like if a senior citizens home rallied to make a Troma film. The actors give it their adorable all, and everyone involved looks like they're having a blast. There's one absolutely brilliant thing where Klaus is explaining how to defeat the ghouls, but they're looking for the escaped General and she's there in the scene. A continuity error they fix with a subtitle that reads, "The General isn't really there. You're just imagining her." Three times! That's funny.
The whole movie is the dream come true, making a real full-length movie! A creature feature, no less. (Sort of.) It's not the film I would've written. Mine would've been way more tightly plotted. But equally I couldn't have written this. I got a story out of it, at least.
If you're really bold I would recommend renting this, with a "You've got to see what these people made!" emphasis. Otherwise, if you don't live in or haven't been to Yachats, you probably couldn't endure it.
Ghoul From the Tidal Pool has 6 votes on IMDb HERE. It can be rented or purchased digitally, or purchased as a DVD on Amazon HERE.
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