S&Man

S&Man.
Directed byJ. T. Petty
Screenplay byJ. T. Petty
Produced byJason Kliot
Lawrence Mattis
Joan Vicente
StarringCarol J. Clover
Debbie D
Michelle Glick
Bob Steenburgh
Erik Marcisak
CinematographyPatrick McGraw
Edited byAndy Grieve
Music byOn Filmore
Darin Gray
Glenn Kotche
Production
company
Distributed byMagnolia Pictures
Release date
Running time
84 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

S&Man (pronounced Sandman) is a 2006 American pseudo-documentary film that examines the underground subculture of horror films. It contains interviews with filmmakers and other participants in the low budget indie horror scene, as well as film professor and author Carol J. Clover. The second half of the film also features a scripted plot, which stars comedian Erik Marcisak as the fictional filmmaker Eric Rost.

The film discusses why some people enjoy underground horror films involving fetishes. Although the film is presented as a documentary, it has a fictional subplot in addition to its nonfiction elements.

S&Man was shown at the reRun Gastropub Theater in New York City, film festivals, and released on home video.

Summary

Director J.T. Petty interviews Carol J. Clover, exploitation film actress Debbie D. (along with Debbie's husband and a sexologist), and the underground horror directors Bill Zebub and Fred Vogel. These interviews are interspersed with clips from various horror films. The character of Eric Rost is also introduced, presented as an additional real-life filmmaker being interviewed.

In the fictional subplot of the film, Petty (playing himself) begins to suspect that Eric Rost is not a horror director but a producer of unsimulated snuff films. Fictional clips from Rost's films, the titular S&Man video series, are shown. They are all shot in the first person and contain no dialogue.[1] Rost refuses to give Petty the contact information of any of the actresses who appear in his films, and Rost is shown spying extensively on women he considers for roles. It ultimately remains ambiguous whether or not Rost's films depict real-life violence.

Interviewees

Cast

Production

We have to react to real violence and real snuff footage all the time, news channels show decapitations and bodies dragged in the streets.

J. T. Petty[6]

S&Man's director J. T. Petty originally intended the film to focus on a man who lived near his childhood home; the man often spied on, and filmed, his neighbors. The footage led to an indictment towards "the peeper", who recorded 191 videotapes of Petty's childhood neighborhood. The indictment implied the footage should be viewed in court, but the people in the neighborhood opposed this owing to privacy concerns.[2][7] Petty said of the 191 videotapes, "I admired the peeping tom; he had made movies that were frightening and titillating and real."[2] The idea of using a camera to record his neighbor's house for hours fascinated him so much that he decided to direct a film about it.[2][7] Although he had already secured funding, Petty was left without a subject since "the peeper" wanted nothing to do with the film. Petty decided to focus on three directors, who did not direct films aimed at the general public; they directed simulated snuff films, involving murder and sexual assault.[7][8] Petty found the directors — Zebub, Vogel, and Marcisak, Petty's friend who played the fictional director Rost — at the Chiller Convention, an underground horror event.[9]

Release

Film festivals and theater

S&Man premiered in the Toronto International Film Festival's "Midnight Madness",[10] a section which features a variety of films from new directors,[11] in 2006. Twitch Film reported that the film's release at the Toronto International Film Festival caused controversy both offline and online,[12] but TMZ reported that the film was popular at the festival.[13] It was shown again at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, in 2006, and UnionDocs in Brooklyn, New York, in 2009.[10][14][15] S&Man had a theatrical release at the reRun Gastropub Theater in New York City in 2010.[16]

Home video

The DVD and Blu-ray of the film were released on 12 October 2010.[17] The DVD and Blu-ray releases both include deleted scenes, other unused material, and two commentary tracks (one featuring Petty and Marcisak, the other featuring Zebub).[18][1]

Reception

Jeannette Catsoulis of The New York Times called the film "a queasy glimpse into bargain-basement sleaze," but also praised it as "cleverly executed".[19] Nick Schager of The Village Voice criticized the pseudo-documentary conceit as "a transparent and uninformative gimmick".[20] Meg Hewings of Hour Community reviewed the film negatively overall, describing it as "puzzling" and "somewhat pointless".[21] Joe Leydon of Variety described the film as an "uncomfortably close look at underground horror" and speculated that the film "could scare up a cult following on the midnight screening circuit".[22]

References

  1. ^ a b Tyner, Adam (7 October 2010). "S&Man (Blu-ray)". DVD Talk. Retrieved 21 April 2012.
  2. ^ a b c d Rocchi, James (8 September 2006). "TIFF Review: S&MAN". Moviefone. Retrieved 21 April 2012.
  3. ^ "Fred Vogel Bio". Toetag Pictures. Retrieved 22 April 2012.
  4. ^ Dart, Allan (12 October 2010). ""S&MAN" (DVD/BLU-RAY REVIEW)". Fangoria. Retrieved 21 April 2012.
  5. ^ "Carol J. Clover". University of California, Berkeley, Department of Scandinavian. Archived from the original on 19 July 2011. Retrieved 22 April 2012.
  6. ^ Anderson, Jason (13 July 2007). "From horror film to torture porn". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 15 February 2020.
  7. ^ a b c Bowen, Chuck (29 September 2010). "S&Man". Slant Magazine. Retrieved 21 April 2012.
  8. ^ Harly, David (12 October 2010). "S&Man (Sandman) (V)". Bloody Disgusting. Retrieved 19 April 2012.
  9. ^ Broadwater, Casey (1 November 2010). "S&Man Blu-ray Review". Blu-ray.com. Retrieved 21 April 2012.
  10. ^ a b "Toronto film fest unveils Midnight Madness lineup". The Globe and Mail. 26 July 2006. Retrieved 15 February 2020.
  11. ^ "Midnight Madness". Toronto International Film Festival. Archived from the original on 14 January 2012. Retrieved 22 April 2012.
  12. ^ Brown, Todd (24 November 2009). "Rare Screening of JT Petty's S&MAN in New York, 29 November!". Twitch Film. Retrieved 21 April 2012.
  13. ^ "Exclusive: "Faces of Death" Revived at Universal". TMZ. 26 October 2006. Retrieved 21 April 2012.
  14. ^ "J. T. Petty's S&Man". Twitch Film. 11 October 2006. Retrieved 22 April 2012.
  15. ^ "S&MAN screening discussion". UnionDocs. 13 January 2010. Retrieved 23 April 2012.
  16. ^ "S&Man". Time Out New York. Retrieved 23 April 2012.
  17. ^ Gingold, Michael (2 August 2010). "DVD/Blu-ray Dates". Fangoria. Archived from the original on 16 July 2012. Retrieved 23 April 2012.
  18. ^ Loomis, Daryl (12 November 2010). "S&Man". DVD Verdict. Archived from the original on 15 November 2010. Retrieved 21 April 2012.
  19. ^ Catsoulis, Jeannette (30 September 2010). "Shots From the Underground". The New York Times. Retrieved 21 April 2012.
  20. ^ Schager, Nick (29 September 2010). "Dissecting Our Fascination With Horror, or Exploiting It, in S&man". The Village Voice. Archived from the original on 18 September 2012. Retrieved 7 August 2023.
  21. ^ Hewings, Meg (5 July 2007). "Fantasia: Documentaries: Gruesome realities". Hour Community. Archived from the original on 11 July 2012. Retrieved 21 April 2012.
  22. ^ Leydon, Joe (21 April 2006). "S&Man (Documentary)". Variety. Retrieved 21 April 2012.