Red Cockroaches (2003) – DVD

**/**** Image B Sound A- Extras B
starring Adam Plotch, Talia Rubel, Diane Spodarek, Jeff Pucillo
written and directed by Miguel Coyula

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover You have to give Red Cockroaches full props: it takes a no-budget budget, some half-understood ideas, and a whole lot of ingenuity and almost pulls off a movie. Alas, “almost” is as far as I’m willing to go, because the film never really understands what the hell it’s trying to say. Though it manages to make you forget its neophyte director’s sex fantasies and complaints, it’s more suggestive than articulate and gets your hopes up only to dash them with noncommittal execution. I have no idea where its combination of Blade Runner dystopia, Polanski perversity, and Sundance relationship drama was supposed to go, and it’s to writer-director Miguel Coyula’s credit that he can keep you praying that he isn’t going to take any sophomoric turns. Alas, he does, and Red Cockroaches does, and your rental night is done for.

It’s the near future, and a few cleverly cheap video mattes establish that New York has become a hellhole. This is where Adam (Adam Plotch), whose father and sister died in a car accident when he was young, nurses his hurt; a relationship with a rich bubblehead and the acid rain and (rarely-glimpsed) mutant cockroaches certainly aren’t helping matters. One day Adam sees a rowdy young woman (Talia Rubel) on the subway who seems his type, though when he bumps into her at the cemetery, she turns out to be a blunt French refugee who cruelly toys with him before turning up at his mother’s place, claiming to be his dead sister. This doesn’t stop him from lusting after her and having a torrid affair, nor does it stop the filmmakers from linking her disappearance to the shadowy corporation DNA 21.

I said the movie was suggestive, but mostly it suggests that the filmmakers should have done something else. While Coyula proves endlessly talented at taking friends-and-family locations and turning them into a nightmare future, it’s a triumph of ingenuity as opposed to one of art. Otherwise, he has no eye, is a pedestrian editor, and has a psychosexual mindset that teeters on the brink of frustrated film student more than a few times. Nevertheless, he keeps you watching, lest his powder keg of unexamined premises actually ignite–and he very nearly illustrates a point with corporate malfeasance in the form of DNA 21 having serious and traumatic domestic side effects. But you must to work to get there; by the ludicrous finale, it’s not enough.

A stronger cast might’ve helped. Adam Plotch–a bigger, less wiry Don McKellar–appears befuddled throughout (and needs a better haircut), while halting Rubel has the look in her eyes but not the acting chops. And Diane Spodarek’s mother is rather embarrassing, all important looks and laboured facial tics that shatter the already fragile illusion of the jerrybuilt production. Still, we wouldn’t be so annoyed at this had Coyula something more precise in mind, or come up with a better reason (actually, any reason) to consider the Oedipal-incestuous fantasies of this seriously confused movie. I imagine that if the director were to truly examine his ideas, he could go somewhere–but he’s far from being out of the woods just yet.

THE DVD
Heretic’s full-frame transfer reveals the limitations of the source material. The digital image, though acceptable, is often bedevilled by an unpleasant greenish tinge and exhibits issues with strobing and compression artifacts. Saturation is good, but the extraneous irritations add up. The Dolby 2.0 stereo sound, however, is surprisingly potent, with sound effects pulsing through the speakers with amazing power. Though the recording of the dialogue is flat and unexciting (probably due to limited miking options), it’s still a big plus for a stretched-to-the-limit production. Extras begin with a commentary with Coyula, Plotch, and supporting cast member Jeff Pucillo. Although Pucillo is of only limited value (during his brief “friend” scenes), Coyula and Plotch provide everything you need to know (and a little you don’t) about the making of the movie. In one corner, the trials of shooting without permits, finding locations, and digitally tweaking the pictures; in the other, the constant tension with Talia Rubel, who was often (and, from its perfunctory mention in the commentary, justified) annoyed with the production’s slobbering, both literally and figuratively. Coyula seems calm throughout, while Plotch interjects with witticisms about shooting without his glasses.

Valvulas de luz (47 mins.) is another zero-budget movie apparently shot with high school friends in Coyula’s native Cuba. It has something to do with a gammy-legged nerd, a gun-crazy jock type, and the end of the world; in relation to Red Cockroaches, it’s similarly ambitious, similarly resourceful, and similarly opaque as to purpose and intent. A brief making-of (7 mins.) features the director in interview discussing his process, his intention to make a film that cost literally nothing (actual budget: $2,000), and the love of comic books and anime that informs his work. Cutesy visual backup–in the form of clips and digital effects–occupies the left side of the screen. Also included: three deleted scenes that are merely transitions or redundant set-ups to bigger exchanges; a two-minute reel of storyboards that are almost impossible to see clearly; an outtakes reel; a director’s bio; and the trailer.

82 minutes; NR; 1.33:1; English DD 2.0 (Stereo); Spanish subtitles; DVD-9; Region One; Heretic