Artie Saves the Hood

Directed by: Ed Radmanich III Kay
Starring: Jason Brown, Kai Kekai, Manny Marmalejus, Vicky Walters, Haji Hill, John Marispini, Alex Mackey and Ed Radmanich III

You know, one of the great things abouthaving a site like this the free stuff that occasionally(VERY occasionally) comes our way. One of those neat little perks showed up in my mail box in the form of a copy of the short film Artie Saves the Hood. Now I would like to start things off by apologizing to Ed, the director. He sent this to me a good five or six months ago and I'm just now getting around to posting my review...sorry Ed, I suck.

Now, having said that let's get on with the review. Artie Saves the Hood, as you might have guessed, is about a guy named Artie. Now Artie isn't just any guy, no sir. He's a SLACKER! And as always, slackers know other slackers. In this case we have Mason, the video game addicted phone sex operator and Fry, the porn addicted pizza boy. I know, how could you not love it with a premise like that? Anyway, to make a long story short, some inter-dimensional conquerors have come to our dimension in search of soap...I kid you not...and the only person who can save us is our fun loving, automatic rifle carrying buddy, Artie. Now I get a little fuzzy about exactly what the different types of soap actually do but apparently, amoung other things, they make doorways that the aforementioned baddies use to travel between dimensions as well as put holes in walls.

Artie Saves the Hood is what I would consider a fairly typical student/indy film in terms of story and acting. The script is fairly funny at times, I absolutely loved the dream sequence with Artie and the baddies flying around in cardboard ships, but the actors are quite obviously not professionals which is a little tiring 30 minutes into the film but not unexpected. The biggest suprise for me is when mid movie Artie basically changes from slacker boy to Rambo. A nice left curve that probably ends up being the single biggest saving grace of the film, though the special effects are a bit above par for a film of this level.

All in all, Artie Saves the Hood is a fairly amusing short that is fun to watch though it does at times feel like a cross between Clerks, Shaun of the Dead and something along the lines of Resident Evil. You should definitely check it out and support your local Indy film maker if you get the opportunity.

Click here to check out the Artie Saves the Hood web site.


- Mike