[Event Review] Bye Bye Bad Taste Festival

From the filmmaker who brought us this year’s rip-roaring I Need You Dead! comes the Bye Bye Bad Taste Fest! Organized by writer/director Rocko Zevenbergen and presented drive-in style in a lot in the Northwest District of Portland, OR. The festival was a send-off for the team at Bad Taste Video as they make their departure to New York City. Before the festivities began there was a VHS exchange and the big screen featured music videos produced by Bad Taste featuring musical artists from the Portland area. 

I got to the festival and was greeted by friendly and organized volunteers and the air was filled with punky artistry. The festival goers were able to sit in their cars or in chairs just outside, while everyone continued to observe Covid precautions, respectfully masked when away from their cars and chatting. There was an awesome collection of VHS tapes being sold by several vendors, including some killer horror titles, and just listening in on the conversations between these die-hard film fans reminded me of how much I’ve missed being around like-minded horror lovers. 

The films featured in the festival ranged from hilarious to melancholy to batshit crazy. The first film of the night was an extended music video, Apparitionata by Dead Coyote which had real Bauhaus vibes, with a dark and alluring voice droning over a truly unique video, a kind of psychedelic vampiric horror story being played out in acts on screen. A mock infomercial entitled The Singing Cryptid Clock from Austin Coburn created a product that I would truly love to own while the laugh out loud Le Meow Mort by Graceann Dorse brought real George Méliès vibes.

Cold from Gayle Yeier had a more indie horror feel, telling the tale of a woman stuck in the woods during a zombie invasion. Monty Wolfe’s Validation captures the narcissism and egomania of current times through the story of a man searching for the perfect romantic partner. One of my personal favorites of the fest is titled Zombie Walk and comes from Rollyn Stafford. The short is simple, showing a man and his zombie friend walking through a post-apocalyptic feeling Portland, and as a resident of the city, I was moved by the images captured as a result of the recent clashes between protesters and police. Zombie Walk has a kind of mono no aware – “the pathos of things” – that hits home after the past year of turmoil. 

James Boylan’s Meat is Murder! is a kind of vegan slasher, with a man targeting vegan hipsters for the quality of their meat. The Bathtub comes from the mind of Dylan Mars Greenberg and was shot entirely on green screen. The film stars Sonic Youth’s Bob Bert and features such talents as Troma’s Lloyd Kaufman, Amanda Flowers, and the first artist in the US to ever be convicted of artistic obscenity, Mike Diana. It’s a raucous display of surrealism with high energy musical fervor. The night capped with the final Portland showing of Zevenbergen’s I Need You Dead!, and you can read my rave review for that film here. 

These are just a few of the films featured in the Bye Bye Bad Taste Film Fest, and I’m thrilled to have been a part of the festivities for the last hurrah of the talented team at Bad Taste Video. As a cap to the fest, I asked Zevenbergen a few questions regarding this successful festival, as well as details concerning his next move. 

What were you looking for in submissions when programming the festival?

Firstly, we wanted to give everyone a fair shot. Bad Taste Video is known for having its roots in horror and cult style films, but that's mostly my (Rocko's) fault. We want to represent all different types of independent cinema. Whether it's documentary, rom-com, or experimental as all hell, we love it. So ultimately what we ended up looking for, was films that had focus. Films that we could tell these independents had worked their booties off to make look, sound, and feel authentic. One of the hardest things for indie filmmakers to accomplish is getting their film over that stylistic and, often, technical hump. The hump of "oh what a cute home-movie we have here" to "oh wow this should be played on the big screen!"

Did you focus on programming local filmmakers?

We actually went for a 50/50 split. I love Portland with all my heart, it will always be home, but like anywhere in the world we can only see so much! It was great to receive films from all over the country to share with our audience. A lot of our future NYC family submitted as well, so it was great to share the work of some likely future collaborators.

It looked like a lot of the music videos that were featured pre-show are local, how many of those videos did you have a hand in producing, and what is it about music that you enjoy taking part in?

Yes, a good majority of the music videos we showcased were local. Maybe 75%? I had my hands in making Mike Michael Motorcycle by On Drugs, Baby Jelly by Skelevision, Numbing by GIMMICK, and Pink & Blue by Andrew Goes to Hell. I helped on the sidelines with a handful of others, and we could have thrown in 5 or 6 more music videos I've done, but I think that'd be a bit too many dutch angles for one night... Filmmaking is my world of work. It is incredibly fulfilling and gets me up every morning, but it is work. Music is more of a happy place for me, a place to let go and to be creative with less paperwork. I actually have my first album coming out in a month or so under my project "Rocko N' Roll". Music videos, to me, are the simplest form of filmmaking. All you have to worry about is the visual component, so half the job is done from the start. It allows for more creative freedom on my end, so I have a tendency to make music videos in between big projects to help unwind-z-mind.

How many of the Bad Taste crew are going to NYC? Why did you choose NYC?

Currently it looks like 3 or 4 of our core members will be moving to NYC. I have dreamt of living in New York City since high school. I just love the idea of being in a place where people have somewhere to be. Where life is a bit more chaotic, a bit more do or die. I'm a part of that nutty group who takes the "immense pressure creates diamonds" thing a bit too seriously, but hey what of it? One day I'll live on a rice field in Japan forever, so I may as well get this out of my system!

Tell me about your filmmaking plans once in NY, are you focusing on features? Do you have a project lined up?

Well we will need to integrate. NYC obviously has a very large and competitive film scene, luckily, I have some connections from my time working with the Troma Team on Lloyd Kaufmann's newest feature Shakespeare's Shitstorm. Once we start building our connections and finding work, we'll likely begin prepping for our next feature. The current working title is FLAPJAX. This next film is on an immensely larger scale than I Need You Dead! and is gonna require us to raise quite a larger budget and crew. However, the film has incredible energy right now and I am confident if we pull it off, we will have a serious hit on our hands, a horror experience unlike anything you've ever seen...!

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