Eduardo Sanchez’s new film, Lovely Molly, screened at midnight on September 14 at the Toronto International Film Festival.
A great thing about writing movie stories is the Mystery Element; that little spark of magic embodied in every creative act. On rare occasions that spark catches fire, and we call that a phenomenon, or “going viral.” It’s not just that a resulting movie made money (McDonalds can do that), but that the Story, against all odds, hit some kind of nerve in the collective consciousness, resulting in a cultural response that could not have been manufactured by the entertainment industrial complex.
If Hollywood could solve every problem by throwing money at it, there would never be any flops or crappy films. Whether a project succeeds or fails in the money-making sense, the Mystery Element –- the potential for hitting that intangible nexus of originality and timing, galvanized through swarm intelligence, morphic resonance, or magic, belongs to the creator. This is kind of what gets me out of bed in the morning, and it is what happened for Maryland filmmakers Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick back in ’99 with the launch of a little movie having to do with some “found footage” and a witch.
One reviewer described Sanchez’s latest film Lovely Molly as a “comeback,” but Sanchez is a filmmaker that never went away, and has been working steadily in pursuit of his passions since, well, high school. I suspect the “comeback” thing is related to a certain schadenfreude that attends the subsequent work of an artist after a big game-changing success. You can’t simply duplicate a phenomenon, but Sanchez and his collaborators at Haxan Films have continued to make films at a steady pace, and on their own terms. From a filmmaker’s perspective, that’s a sweet spot.
The story: Molly is recently married, and financial pressures lead her and her trucker husband to move into Molly’s childhood home, a place where some very bad things may have happened to her (this seems an astute dramatic choice, given America’s current unemployment woes). When her husband leaves for long-haul work, Molly is left alone in the awe-full house to confront a withering, repressed evil. The house (filming took place near Hagerstown) is a memorable character in its own right. Molly’s descent is rendered with a terrible intimacy, made startling with an arresting performance by Gretchen Lodge (Molly is Lodge’s first, but definitely not last, feature).
Sanchez knows a thing or two about horror, including how to break the “rules” even as he delivers on the genre with visceral authority. Because he used it in that other movie to such memorable effect, Sanchez is often called on to defend or explain his use of “first person” camera. It’s really a matter of theatrical convention that other filmmakers are given a pass on, but Sanchez, perhaps understandably, seems to be held to a strict standard. He is gracious on the question, but with Lovely Molly it must be said that he has gone well beyond style, and deeper into substance. Excellent cinematography by John Rutland and amazing sound design by Catonsville-based Studio Unknown contribute to an impressive final package.
Sanchez and his team at Haxan Films, including co-writer Jamie Nash, have also shown creative diligence in developing trans-media campaigns for their films. There is more to Lovely Molly than can meet the eye in a screening, and that additional story mythology is conveyed through a deep foundation of videos, side stories, details, and theories that form a web of intrigue for bewitched fans to explore; so get your geek on. (They do other cool stuff too, like the graphic novel project Blackbeard)
Haxan Films is an important asset to the Baltimore and Maryland film community. Sanchez’s passion for his work includes a supportive and generous attitude towards other local filmmakers. Case in point, you can catch him hosting fellow filmmakers David A. Cross, Gary Ugarek, and Justin Timpane at the Washington, DC Women in Film & Video Wednesday event on October 5th. You can learn more about the even by downloading their newsletter here.
