Page 83 - Sharp Summer 2021

The latest in a growing line of off-beat gen- re efforts by Canadian Indigenous directors, Night Raiders features daunting apocalyp- tic imagery including flocks of surveillance drones, crumbling urban landscapes, and even a deadly pandemic. While Goulet started her career making social realist shorts, she soon saw an advantage in bringing in these kinds of horror and science fiction elements. “Part of the reason I wanted to make genre films was to find ways to talk back to my own community,” she says. “They’ve never been a priority, and I wanted to make something for them first.”
Goulet’s interest in genre films was first sparked by childhood trips to her local theatre in northern Saskatchewan to watch favour- ites by Steven Spielberg. However, she says it was only in later years that she realized how these films can address social issues in an inspiring way. “I remember when I saw The Matrix for the first time,” she recalls. “I felt as an Indigenous person that it had such a subversive message — fighting back against an oppressive force that’s everywhere, that’s colonization! I remember the way I felt when I left the theatre.”
Many B-movie filmmakers tell similar stories about the formative movies that helped shape their career choices. “Ever since I was seven, I wanted to make Star Wars,” admits prolific Ottawa director Brett Kelly, who is preparing to release what he plans to be his final film, Galaxy Warriors. While oth- er Canadian filmmakers like Kephart and Goulet are excited about how genre films open up possibilities for social commentary, Kelly has more personal reasons for sitting in the director’s chair. “I’ve never thought about making a movie that tells about the human condition,” he notes. “When I’m coming up with ideas, I usually just think of something I always wanted to be when I was a kid — like a pirate. Or maybe a robot. Something like that.”
Kelly’s hoping Galaxy Warriors will be a fitting final curtain on his career, which saw him crank out more than 30 films over almost 20 years — a track record that he believes makes him Canada’s most prolific B-movie filmmaker. He’s done everything from musicals to westerns, and from crime thrillers to romantic comedies, using local talent almost exclusively. In addition to more traditional B films like Jurassic Shark (2012), Homicycle (2014), and Ouija Shark (2020), Kelly’s perhaps best known for a handful of “mockbusters” that play off Hollywood hits with similar plots and soundalike titles,
“Looking at that success, people start- ed to see how mar- ginalized voices can use these films.”
including Spyfall (2014), the superhero entry Iron Soldier (2010), and his latest release, the giant monster flick Konga TNT (2020). “Even though I do think about the audience when I’m making them, I guess I do these movies for me, primarily,” he says.
It’s that unpretentious sense of nostalgia that not only motivates many B-movie di- rectors, but also attracts fans to these films, believes Kuplowsky. “A lot of the appeal is how they transport people back to a more exciting way of seeing movies, whether it’s piling in the station wagon and heading to the drive-in or renting a VHS tape with a garish cover,” he says. Filmmakers often see new projects as a chance to revisit the kinds of films they enjoyed in more impressionable years. “We don’t want to tell our story in a normal reality,” agrees Kephart, who was inspired by classic Italian horror chillers when making Slaxx. “Our nostalgia for an older era of films can be part of creating that different world.”
Still, while B movies continue to reach new levels of visibility, Kelly feels that it’s come at a price. One of the reasons he’s moving on from the industry is that he’s lost many actors and crewmembers to more established outfits, including the Hallmark Channel, which shoots many low-budget Christmas movies in Ottawa. “I guess some people would rather spend a day as a background actor standing next to Tori Spelling than be the star of a movie about a vampire,” he laughs.
With box office revenues still recovering from the pandemic, Hollywood has also start- ed to look to modestly budgeted B movies as a way to limit financial risks. Already in 2021, we’ve seen Godzilla vs. King Kong , Mortal Kombat, and Army of the Dead, a new zom- bie sequel from Zack Snyder. And it’s not the first time either — studio blockbusters like Jaws (1975), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), and Aliens (1986) became big hits by recapturing the tawdry thrills of B films from decades gone by. And just as many of those films in- spired today’s genre filmmakers, it’s likely that this new crop — along with more grounded low-budget films like Midsommar (2019) and Jordan Peele’s Us (2019) — will encourage the next generation to keep the B film alive.
“Historically, B movies are made by people that don’t have a lot of resources; they had to rely on ingenuity and passion to succeed,” believes Kuplowsky. “For young filmmakers, there’s something heroic about this idea of fighting your way through and coming out the other side with art — or something pretty close, anyways.”
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