Slick Dungeon here, back to review a movie I watched for my movie challenge. This one was for the first category: a movie made by an independent movie studio. To check out the full challenge click here.

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Butter on the Latch is an experimental film classified as a psychological thriller/drama. It’s independent and it is experimental. As far as the rest of it goes, um, I’m not sure how to explain this film to you.

We start with Sarah getting out of some kind of dance performance. She receives a call from her good friend Isolde who has woken up in a house with people she has never met and in a panic. Sarah tells her to leave immediately which seems like a good call to me.

Then we are in the woods of Mendocino, California. Sarah and Isolde are both there and from that point the film dares to ask the question; what if someone filmed their musical band camp experience? There’s a lot of wandering around in the woods, some music rehearsal, some flirtation, some going off in the woods where flirtation goes a bit further, then some things that are unclear happen and the movie sort of ends with Sarah, crying and laughing while this huge musical performance is going on. One thing I can tell you is that when you are in the woods camping, even if you go off with someone to, you know, do that, tell people where you will be. It will save you from getting lost and possibly from experimental film making as well.

Don’t get me wrong, I think experimentation in film is a good thing. I think there should be more of it. The problem with experiments is that sometimes they fail. While I can mostly fashion together what seemed to have happened in the movie, it’s kind of a jumble. There is some interesting camera work and I think on a technical level it was well made. The dialogue was all improvised and feels very real because of that. Unless you are into experimental film, however, I don’t recommend giving it a watch. If you are into experimental film, you may enjoy it but I doubt you will make complete sense of it. If that’s fine with you, definitely give it a watch because we do need more independent films to be made.

One final thing to note. I might just be missing something here but as far as I can recall there was no mention of butter or latches in Butter on the Latch. I mean, come on, I was kind of looking forward to seeing someone butter up some kind of latch.

Independently yours,

Slick Dungeon