American Gothic
(Cult Epics Region 0 NTSC DVD)
(2005)
review by Brad Caffeine

When I first received "American Gothic" from theHorrorview mailbag, I was ecstatic. I thought for asplit second that it was the underrated 1987 film that had so obviously inspired "House of 1,000 Corpses. Sadly, this was not the case. This "American Gothic"is actually a short film by photographer Carlos Batts.

The film itself is an experimental nightmare. Clips ofbugs wallowing in the dirt are mixed with an old man(from the famous American Gothic painting) coveringhimself with blood as ghostly women hang out eerily. For the most part the film is nothing more than what David Lynch used to call "living paintings." There is some narration, which is hard to understand due to too much echo, as well as some horribly out of place heavy metal music.

According to Batts himself, who gives a brief explanation before the film starts, "American Gothic" is a film that tries to explain a theory about the painting. The theory is that the man in the painting actually went crazy and killed his wife, and inevitably went even crazier because he was immortalized within that painting. If it weren't for Batts' introduction, I highly doubt that the viewer would get that from watching the film. For the most part, it is nothing more than a stew of strange images and special effects.

The real head-scratcher however, is why a DVD that costs twenty-five bucks would actually be a film that clocks in at just 20 minutes. Luckily there are three other short films as supplemental material on the disc. However, sadly the films are only a minute or so a piece, and are of extremely poor quality.

Apparently those three short films were lost, and the only surviving copies of them were on VHS. After watching the entirety of the disc, it seems to me that either I'm just not deep enough to understand this kind of art, or Batts is really just a film maker who is hung up on mid 90's-era Headbanger's Ball music videos.