How many times have you received questionable, poorly formatted emails from so-called prestigious film festivals wanting to select your film? Bold fonts addressing you by name, a colorful invite, plus a bright bonus code to encourage you to submit. We’ve all had this happen to us within the first few weeks of signing up for the popular website FilmFreeway. Not ringing any bells? Well, if you aren’t in the know, Nathan Alan Thomas’ EP/2 will guide you through the seedy underbelly of festivals, filmmaking, and a creator’s broken psyche.
Scam film festivals, Saw and Richard Linklater. If that unique marriage of styles interests you, EP/2 might hold enough promise to keep you initially engaged. Aspiring actress Natasha Mortenson (Jaclene London) awakes, held in the clutches of a mysterious filmmaker who’s hell-bent on bringing his twisted vision to life. Moving room to room, Natasha must follow the director’s every prompt, lest she face the consequences of his wrath. These trials include confronting her boss (Tricia Panek) over past transgressions. This game doesn’t just concern Natasha, though, as event organizer Kyle (Kyle Gregory) is also roped into this sinister event by a shadowy EP (Paolo Ricci), thanks to his involvement in running the fake film festival Hossfest. The shadowy aeteur’s endgame is unclear, and time is of the essence for all involved with his experiment.
A vibrant and often disorienting experience, EP/2 plays like a warped indie version of James Wan’s Saw franchise. The feature is less about traps and more about making an artistic statement, featuring bold colors and an offbeat aesthetic reminiscent of Richard Linklater’s work. Thomas is going all out here, throwing all kinds of ideas at a wall to see what sticks. Sincerity is his story’s strong suit, coupled with an experimental edge that makes EP/2 both look and feel like a vintage grindhouse special.
But like is often the case with such big creative swings, the film is all over the place, technically and thematically speaking. Weirdly mixed audio, an uneven soundtrack, and inconsistent editing really hinder its overall message. The dialogue is completely inept, with only the boisterous voice of the enigmatic director providing any meaningful context to many scenes later on. Gregory and co-star Luke St. Germaine are excellent opposite each other in the tiny Hossfest office, with St. Germaine rolling his fake tattoo sleeves and sniffing dollar bills like any on-screen lowlife would. It’s a novel setup, one quickly turned sour by the nosedive into the nonsensical.
Buried beneath EP/2 lies a compelling, and even darkly humorous deconstruction of the modern indie film scene. Writer/director Nathan Alan Thomas digs with every tool at his disposal but unfortunately can’t quite get past the surface.
