The horror documentary has a distinguished history. Room 237, Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy and Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th all provide insightful and sometimes exhaustive discussions into the meanings and histories of these films and franchises, and the continued appetite for such documentaries demonstrates the passion of the fan community. While The Shining, A Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th are household names, a less prominent title, let alone fandom, is End Zone (1965) and End Zone 2 (1970). It may be this relative obscurity that that inspired directors Sophia Cacciola and Michael J. Epstein to create The Once and Future Smash, a mockumentary centred around End Zone 2, a film with no surviving complete version as the last 30 minutes are lost. The mockumentary and a restoration of the incomplete film played as a double bill at FrightFest 2022, the ideal venue for a neglected horror film and a documentary from evident lovers of the genre.
Watching The Once and Future Smash is an odd experience, as initially it appears to be a legitimate documentary, with talking heads including Mark Patton (Nightmare on Elm Street 2), Melanie Kinnaman (Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning), V.C. DuPree (Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan), Lloyd Kaufman (Troma), Victor Miller (Friday the 13th), Adam Marcus (Jason Goes to Hell) and many more. At first, these guests seem to be discussing End Zone 2 in a serious way as a significant film, but as their claims become increasingly disparate and outlandish, we see that this is less Crystal Lake Memories and more This Is Spinal Smash. At this point, the viewer can settle into the ribbing and purposely absurd narrative.
This narrative revolves around the Mad Monster Party horror convention where fans are gathering for guests and panels from such delights as Man-Spider (a spider bitten by a radioactive man who gains the powers of a human). Also at this convention are the two men who played the killer Smash Mouth in End Zone 2: Mikey Smash (Michael St. Michaels), who played the role in the footage that survives; William Mouth (Bill Weeden), who did so in the footage that is lost. Mikey is also accompanied by A.J. (A. J. Cutler) who has a lifelong vow to serve Smash Mouth. It’s all a bit weird.
Much of this material is familiar and at times funny, as well as being pleasingly meta as the film focuses on actors playing actors who are forever associated with one role. In true documentary form, the various guests give their views on the film’s history, its influence and its meaning, such as repeated insistences on the film being a metaphor for the Vietnam war. However, the knowingness that informs the film is rather grating at times and the repeated gags (Vietnam!) become tiresome. While there is affection for the fans and stars of such cult ‘classics’, there is also a sense of meanness and punching down – look how stupid these would-be producers are, look at the insistence of these interpretations (Vietnam!), ha ha ha. While the film offers some pleasures for fans of horror cinema, horror conventions and indeed mockumentaries, The Once and Future Smash is overall too smug and, indeed, mocking to maintain enjoyment.
Screened in partnership with the mockumentary is End Zone 2 itself, restored from a range of different sources, including six partial prints and a partial Italian internegative. This provides context for The Once and Future Smash, but it is somewhat mystifying that this stilted and painfully forced slasher has attracted any kind of following. Evident care went into the restoration, but one might ask why the film warranted such attention.
Aside from being baffled, the viewer may also be relieved that thirty minutes of the film is lost, because after twenty minutes you’re likely to check the time. There can be a charm to the ramshackle nature of this sub-genre, and it is interesting that End Zone and End Zone 2 predate the slasher boom of the late 1970s and early 80s. But there is no charm to be found in this turgid mess as director August Kane demonstrates no flair or style, or frankly much in the way of competency. Characters frequently stand around explaining the plot, in a series of close-ups and full shots that are clumsily edited to the point of being obvious. Tension is severely lacking as the characters’ running is so minimal as to destroy the illusion of a chase, and any attempted jump scares are hamstrung as all it takes is for a killer to turn around and attack. Furthermore, when he does attack, the feeble thrashing of the performers as well as the discontinuous editing look painfully amateurish. While the mask of Smash Mouth is somewhat gruesome, the character’s prancing and lunging come across as dumb rather than menacing. The one atmospheric moment is an out of nowhere séance sequence that offers some creepiness, but this supernatural element is unmotivated and does not return. Maybe that aspect is in the lost footage, but after seeing 60 minutes of this tedious drivel, why would we care?
All in all, this paired production is very odd. Either the original film holds great meaning for the directors, possibly out of a love for something that they regard as so bad it’s good; or maybe they find it genuinely terrible and thought it would be fun to take the piss out of it. In a sense, they do succeed in this regard, but that rather adds to the sense of punching down. The overall result is a peculiar mixture of affection and meanness, which at least demonstrates that Cacciola and Epstein can balance some interesting bedfellows.
Watching The Once and Future Smash is an odd experience, as initially it appears to be a legitimate documentary, with talking heads including Mark Patton (Nightmare on Elm Street 2), Melanie Kinnaman (Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning), V.C. DuPree (Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan), Lloyd Kaufman (Troma), Victor Miller (Friday the 13th), Adam Marcus (Jason Goes to Hell) and many more. At first, these guests seem to be discussing End Zone 2 in a serious way as a significant film, but as their claims become increasingly disparate and outlandish, we see that this is less Crystal Lake Memories and more This Is Spinal Smash. At this point, the viewer can settle into the ribbing and purposely absurd narrative.
This narrative revolves around the Mad Monster Party horror convention where fans are gathering for guests and panels from such delights as Man-Spider (a spider bitten by a radioactive man who gains the powers of a human). Also at this convention are the two men who played the killer Smash Mouth in End Zone 2: Mikey Smash (Michael St. Michaels), who played the role in the footage that survives; William Mouth (Bill Weeden), who did so in the footage that is lost. Mikey is also accompanied by A.J. (A. J. Cutler) who has a lifelong vow to serve Smash Mouth. It’s all a bit weird.
Much of this material is familiar and at times funny, as well as being pleasingly meta as the film focuses on actors playing actors who are forever associated with one role. In true documentary form, the various guests give their views on the film’s history, its influence and its meaning, such as repeated insistences on the film being a metaphor for the Vietnam war. However, the knowingness that informs the film is rather grating at times and the repeated gags (Vietnam!) become tiresome. While there is affection for the fans and stars of such cult ‘classics’, there is also a sense of meanness and punching down – look how stupid these would-be producers are, look at the insistence of these interpretations (Vietnam!), ha ha ha. While the film offers some pleasures for fans of horror cinema, horror conventions and indeed mockumentaries, The Once and Future Smash is overall too smug and, indeed, mocking to maintain enjoyment.
Screened in partnership with the mockumentary is End Zone 2 itself, restored from a range of different sources, including six partial prints and a partial Italian internegative. This provides context for The Once and Future Smash, but it is somewhat mystifying that this stilted and painfully forced slasher has attracted any kind of following. Evident care went into the restoration, but one might ask why the film warranted such attention.
Aside from being baffled, the viewer may also be relieved that thirty minutes of the film is lost, because after twenty minutes you’re likely to check the time. There can be a charm to the ramshackle nature of this sub-genre, and it is interesting that End Zone and End Zone 2 predate the slasher boom of the late 1970s and early 80s. But there is no charm to be found in this turgid mess as director August Kane demonstrates no flair or style, or frankly much in the way of competency. Characters frequently stand around explaining the plot, in a series of close-ups and full shots that are clumsily edited to the point of being obvious. Tension is severely lacking as the characters’ running is so minimal as to destroy the illusion of a chase, and any attempted jump scares are hamstrung as all it takes is for a killer to turn around and attack. Furthermore, when he does attack, the feeble thrashing of the performers as well as the discontinuous editing look painfully amateurish. While the mask of Smash Mouth is somewhat gruesome, the character’s prancing and lunging come across as dumb rather than menacing. The one atmospheric moment is an out of nowhere séance sequence that offers some creepiness, but this supernatural element is unmotivated and does not return. Maybe that aspect is in the lost footage, but after seeing 60 minutes of this tedious drivel, why would we care?
All in all, this paired production is very odd. Either the original film holds great meaning for the directors, possibly out of a love for something that they regard as so bad it’s good; or maybe they find it genuinely terrible and thought it would be fun to take the piss out of it. In a sense, they do succeed in this regard, but that rather adds to the sense of punching down. The overall result is a peculiar mixture of affection and meanness, which at least demonstrates that Cacciola and Epstein can balance some interesting bedfellows.