Reviews
Other
ACNE
No-budget goofiness that’s enjoyable, imaginative and, surprisingly, quite politically astute. It’s almost certainly the greatest monster-zit movie of all time!
The Package
Illinois-based filmmaker Rusty Nails, the writer, producer, director,
editor and star of ACNE, began it as a student project at Columbia University.
The film, shot on black and white 16mm film in and around the filmmaker’s
Chicago hometown, ended up taking several years to reach its 2002 fruition.
It’s been met with mostly enthusiastic reception on the festival circuit,
earning raves from the likes of John Waters and
George Romero--it seems
appropriate, then, that Rusty Nails has since gone on to make the documentary
DEAD ON: THE LIFE AND FILMS OF GEORGE ROMERO. (For those interested, ACNE was
made available on DVD in 2005, from www.neweyefilms.com.)
The Story
Franny and Zoe are two teenagers who wake up one morning to find giant zits
on their heads that promptly explode, leaving ugly crown-like scar tissue where
hair once grew. Thus afflicted, they froth at the mouth, spurt pus from their
heads and lose all appetite except in their giant acne scars, which they smear
with cream cheese and other greasy substances, as they’re what the tissue
craves. It seems a contagion has gotten into the town’s water supply and is
doing to teenagers throughout the area--only teenagers, not children or
adults--what it did to Franny and Zoe. The contagion is also apparently rampant
in the nearby Mershey’s chocolate factory, which continues to sell its product
even after it learns of the mutations.
Authorities promptly ban the sale of Mershey’s chocolate to minors, which
inspires underground chocolate salesmen to peddle the stuff to unsuspecting
teens. Franny and Zoe get together with a bunch of their “zithead” friends and
decide to storm the Mershey’s chocolate factory, thus putting it out of business
for good. But the authorities get wind of their intentions and send helicopters
to intercept the zitheads on their way to the factory, unleashing nerve gas that
stuns them all...but also, in at least two cases, causes the zit scar tissue to
melt away.
The Direction
If you’ve seen many no-budget horror flicks then you won’t be surprised by
the ultra-grainy black and white film stock, jerky camerawork, play doh-ey
prosthetic effects and muffled sound. All are elements of ACNE, which
conversely has in its favor a quality impossible to buy or rent, no matter how
substantial a budget one has: genuine inspiration. Sure, the pacing is erratic
and the narrative uneven, but the premise is inspired, and undergoes a number of
imaginative twists. Yes, the humor is often unnecessarily dopey (a romance
between a military man in denial about the fact that he’s losing his hair and a
co-worker is plain asinine), but there’s a political dimension to it that grows
increasingly pressing. For all its goofiness, this film has some decidedly
prescient things to say about the exploitation of teenagers in our society. In
the end, though, it works for one simple reason: its fun.
Vital Statistics
ACNE
New Eye Films
Director/Producer/Screenwriter/Editor: Rusty Nails
Cinematography: Richard Menzia, David M. Russell
Cast: Rusty Nails, Tracey Hayes, Jim Darley, Timothy Hutchings, Mary Luckritz,
Randall Stanton, Matthew Falkowski, Meg Arader, Michael Zoll, Reina Sosa