Come On Down to the Lamb Feed
Saturday night, November 15, 2014, I went down to Full Circle Brewing Company and joined the Central Valley Horror Club at the Premiere viewing of Micheal S. Rodriguez’ Lamb Feed, an MSR STUDIOS and DeepMurder Productions L.L.C. horror short.
Here’s the description off the facebook page:
When overconfident businessman Mitchell Barnes gets a blowout in a quaint sleepy town all seems normal until he asks the community for a helping hand…What Mitchell gets instead is an invite to the darkest realm of his own fears…An invite to the LAMB FEED!!!
The night began with a mix and mingle and I quickly made my way to the horror club’s founder, Kaci Hansen (little did I know she is in the movie! I might have been more nervous had I known). I’d been meaning to check out the group for years, but kept missing opportunities–it usually meets in Visalia–so when this premiere popped up in my feed, I knew I had to make the effort to get out to Downtown and introduce myself. Having long nurtured the sci-fi side of the local genre community, I thought it was time I reached out to more horror fans. Kaci, a local celebrity in her own right as the Homicidal Homemaker, couldn’t have been nicer or more welcoming–and in fact, everyone I met that night was really open, friendly and kind, which greatly amped up the juxtaposition of the club’s reason for being–horror! Oh, and Death! And Guts!
I grabbed myself a High Speed Rail Ale–cold, a little bitter, but nice and hoppy–and found a seat to enjoy Michael’s first film, Night of the Sea Monkey (2011). It was good, quirky, creepy and fun, made all the more enjoyable by watching it with a room packed with horror aficionados, a distillation of campy B movies, with some brilliant surprising moments and lots of raw talent. The grandma stole the show!
After a brief intermission, Lamb Feed began–it started simply enough, with our protagonist, Mitchell Barnes (played haplessly and fervently by Luke Church) driving along a valley road, breaking up with his girlfriend on his cell phone, when he gets a blow out and then sets out to find help when his cell comes up with no service. As he makes his way through an eerily deserted town, we are treated to glimpses of disturbing images superimposed into the shadows, no doubt a foreshadowing of things to come. He “meats” Michael Wainwright’s insidious Rev Wicker, who draws him to the Lamb Feed. Once there, Barnes is enticed by the lovely Kaci Hansen’s barmaid and the sultry Meghan Chadeayne’s Lana. Without giving too much away, we are served an escalation of disturbing images, both real and imagined, until, by movies end, we are both shocked and awed by the things we have seen and heard. Luis Javier Obregon’s music is a visceral feast for the ears and skin and gut, adding tension and punch to the visuals, and Grace Cash Ortiz and Kalie Reed did a phenomenal job with Robert Allen Muke’s makeup for the Butcher. All in all, the Wicker family is a wildly welcome (unwelcome?) addition to the pantheon of horror film families, and I would love to see a full feature version of Lamb Feed. As it stands, it’s a deliciously wicked morsel of a short film. Do not miss it if/when you get a chance to catch it!
After the film, came a Q and A with most of the cast, a few of the key crew and writer/director Rodriguez. Kaci Hansen wanted to help promote the movie, so Rodgriguez just went ahead and put her in it (brilliant!). Rodriguez explained that Lamb Feed was inspired by the fact that communities often get together for no reason other than to eat, whether it be a crab feed, lamb feed, etc., and he wanted to create a twisted version of that. Michael Wainwright was excited, I mean really excited to be a part of Lamb Feed, and hoped this would be the start of more [acting] and encouraged the audience to pursue their dreams.
I was lucky enough to chat with Michael S. Rodriguez himself, briefly, and got a few tantalizing tidbits about what he’s working on next. I wholeheartedly offered my services, so who knows, maybe I’ll get to act again sometime in the future. Or do some concept art. Or some co-writing. Man, working with any of these talented folks in any capacity, well, that would be AWESOME.
For more on Lamb Feed, click on any of the above links, or check out the Blood Brothers Podcast Special Edition: Lamb Feed!
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