Getting the Shakes at Sundance

January 24, 2007

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Greetings, OUTzoners from the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah! I’m here doing interviews for Hollywood Life magazine but I’m also managing to catch a few flicks. On Friday night, I was able to score a ticket for the premier of An American Crime, out director Tommy O’Haver’s film about the real-life torture and murder of teenage girl by the woman who was supposed be caring for her in suburban Indiana in 1965. I had never heard of this much-talked about case before seeing the film so I was riveted to its every twist and turn. It’s a disturbing, intense, thought-provoking and well-made film with a powerhouse performance by Catherine Keener as the sadistic supposed caretaker Gertrude Baniszewski.

So I’m watching the film with friends in the balcony at the Eccles Theater. We’re on the edge of our seats, peering through our fingers during one of the most intense, stomach churning scenes of the film when suddenly there’s a big disturbance on the main floor of the theater. People are carrying on and shouting out, “Stop the film! Stop the film!” At first, I thought maybe the reels were out of order or perhaps someone was outraged at what was being depicted on screen and decided to kick up a stink. It turns out that someone was so disturbed by what they were seeing they started experiencing seizures and had to be taken out of the theater for medical attention.

A few days later, I ran into director Tommy O’Haver on Main Street. He reported that the seizurer (Is that a word?) was okay. I expressed my relief then pointed out that causing people to convulse, pass out, vomit or otherwise experience physical tumult didn’t seem to hurt the box office performance of The Exorcist, The Blair With Project or The Passion of the Christ. In fact, I think it helped those films achieve must-see-for-yourself status.

Tommy, whose debut film was the feel-good gay romance Billy’s Hollywood Screen Kiss, agreed then shared this anecdote.

“I remember being at the New York Film festival with a short film in 1994,” he recalled, “and the opening night film was Pulp Fiction. When Uma Thurman got the needle stuck into her chest, somebody screamed, “There’s a medical emergency!” and they had to stop the film, turn on the lights and drag the person out. And I thought at the time, ‘God, I’d love to make a movie that makes somebody do that’.”

And now he has! So dreams do come true at Sundance and I was there to see it happen. Make sure to check out An American Crime when it comes to your town…if you dare.

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