Entry: Mr. Slug VS Mr. Salt

vitualis · Moderator Joined: 01 Oct 2000 Location: Australia

Download here: http://shortfilm.videohelp.com/video/mrslug_vs_mrsalt_(small).avi

Author:
M. Cleveland

Name of short film:
Mr. Slug VS Mr. Salt

Short blurb about the film

A psychotic world where the vcdhelp community is a slug and Baldrick is salt.

Behind the scenes:

I was stoned & partially drunk at 2 in the morning and found a slug on my rug in the bathroom.

How this was done

Recorded with a crappy Panasonic video camera, captured with ati all in wonder card, cut with womble, encoded to xvid with autogk, While stoned and partially drunk.

Sponsors

Some annonymous girl drinking margaritas left the salt container by accident.

ozymango · Member Joined: 13 Jul 2004 Location: Portland, OR

Reporting from the field at the end of the first day of the "Baldrick International Film Festival," filed 14/01/06

Sure, I lost my luggage and on my arrival at the hotel my complimentary gift basket was lutefisk and marmite (is everybody here Scandinavian or Australian?), which was actually pretty tasty when chased down by peanuts, but so far I've been having a great time here. It's not yet as crowded as Cannes but the audience, the films, the experience, is wonderful and I look forward to the rest of the festival.

Because I was so jet-lagged I ended up crashing in my room and missing a couple of the first major presentations that ran earlier in the day, but word-of-mouth on these was extremely positive and they'll be showing them again in the little theater right across the street, I'll catch 'em then.

My first show, which was a midnight movie as I spent the later half of the day heaving up lutefisk, marmite, and peanuts in my bathroom, was a real sleeper, "Quentin Tarantino Presents: Mr. Slug VS Mr. Salt" (referred to after this as "QTPMSVMS.") The audience was a bit small and none of us knew what to expect -- Tarantino had seen a print of this film some time back and was so excited by it, he attached his name as "co-vice-line-executive-producer," and we didn't know if it was an action/adventure/martial arts film, a blaxploitation film, a horror film, an escape-from-an-all-womens-prison-on-motorcycles film, or all of the above. But we were quietly hopeful as the lights dimmed.

To say that this movie plays with both reality and your emotions is an understatement, and while some of us laughed at the beginning, nobody was laughing by the end. We were too busy covering our eyes or squirming in our seats, so effective was the director at lulling us into his trap.

Not unlike such recent films as Eli Roth's "Hostel" -- which is thematically somewhat similiar to QTPMSVMS in that both were inspired (according to their directors) by web sites in strange, far away places that offered wealthy and jaded people the opportunity to negatively affect the lives of random strangers, to horrific results -- or even "Wolf Creek" (which, while set in Australia and containing no references to salt, was obviously inspired by QTPMSVMS as the latter film was produced in 2000 and sat unreleased for several years due to copyright issues with the Morton company), QTPMSVMS starts simply with what seems to be a normal person (or, in this case, a garden slug) going on about their normal business, only to slowly but inexorably drawn into a world of horror beyond our ability to watch.

But QTPMSVS is far, far better than these other films, because the director (an unknown as yet, but keep your eyes on more work from M. Cleveland!) has such command of the camera that we always feel we are witnessing something terrifying, even as pretty much nothing is actually happening on the screen. He (or she) doesn't go for gore -- it's all purely Hitchcock-ian suspense, yet the cumulative effect is much more nightmare inducing than just showing us body parts everywhere. There was one person in the audience who snickered at the end and said the movie looked like it was filmed at 2am by someone stoned out of his head, but he was shaking just as badly as the rest of us. This film is -- disturbingly -- a scenario that could easily happen to any of us, anytime. After all, how many people actually go looking for booty on vacations to countries whose names we can't pronounce, or have any interest in Australia? But a piece of carpet ... a screwdriver ... a carton of salt ... who doesn't have this in their house?

I know I'll never look at a little girl with an umbrella the same way again.

5 stars out of 5. I can't imagine how it can get any better from here, but stay tuned for my further reports!

ozymango · Member Joined: 13 Jul 2004 Location: Portland, OR

I actually laughed out loud at the part where the narrator makes rude comments about the Morton salt girl.

lumis · Posted: Jan 16, 2006 02:42

oh man, i'm dying laughing.. awesome review.

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Kingnog · Member Joined: 06 Sep 2002 Location: USA

Alright, I admit it, this video didn't have the best camerawork, or editing, or sound....but it was HILLARIOUS! I had to give it a 4. I can't say it was the "best" (because it clearly wasn't), but it was not the worst by far. So much creativity....and it can even include "no animals were harmed in the making odf this film" at the end!
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-Yar, matey!-

MrMoody · Mad Eye Joined: 26 May 2002 Location: NTSC Land

It was better than I expected, but this is mainly because I had low expectations.

Comedy: 4
Writing: 3
Photography: Tripod/Steadicam & lessons needed

ROF · **Banned** Joined: 04 Feb 2005 Location: USA

While this movie was funny in parts. The editing wasn't the greatest, the sound was not the best and in portions of it I found myself looking away from the screen because I was bored. What can I say, I wasn't that impressed. I only had time tonight to watch three of these short films and this one held my attention the least. Funny in parts, but nothing to write home about. The ending could have been better or at least . . . well I guess I'll just vote now.

ozymango · Member Joined: 13 Jul 2004 Location: Portland, OR

mattso · Member Joined: 25 Oct 2005 Location: Australia

I wish you had've squished the slug!

dphirschler · Ut Joined: 29 Aug 2001 Location: Kennesaw, GA - USA

Yeah, I thought he was going to crush the slug with the salt container.

Darryl

lumis · Posted: Jan 29, 2006 12:25

if i did that my entry would have been disqualified for animal cruelty.
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gadgetguy · Contestant Joined: 14 Feb 2002 Location: Michigan, USA

Oh, and it wasn't cruel to torture that poor slug?

Terrorizing it with that salt container, threatening it with certain doom, sprinkling that salt so close that you could just smell the fear?

I felt so bad for the poor creature I was "this close" to reporting you.

But, of course, it was just a slug after all.

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"Shut up Wesley!"
-- Captain Jean-Luc Picard

offline · incognito Joined: 05 Jun 2002 Location: Mondo Caine

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