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Beyond Hollywood there lies “outsider cinema”, the backyard domain of some of the world’s most creative and truly cracked filmmakers ever to have cranked a camera.
2017
Forty years ago, a homeless Korean immigrant built an Orlando martial arts empire. In 1987, he recruited his devoted students to act as amateur cast and crew for his ill-fated action movie, Miami Connection, which follows a TaeKwondo themed synth rock band in their battle against drug-dealing motorcycle ninjas.
After his film, Birdemic: Shock and Terror, was rejected from the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, Vietnamese software salesman James Nguyen decided to head up to Park City and spend the week driving around in a car plastered with fake blood and stuffed eagles to promote his low-budget "romantic thriller" anyway.The stunt caught the attention of festival-goer and VICE host Evan Husney who, after watching the film, felt compelled to release it throughout the country. Birdemic opened to massive mainstream media attention and was celebrated by audiences for its every imperfection. Some even hailed it as "the worst movie ever made."On this episode of OUTSIDER—our web series that delves deep into the minds behind the world's strangest movies—Husney reunites with Nguyen years after the Birdemic phenomenon and finds that the director is still haunted by the film's reception and desperate to restart his career.
For the past 25 years, David "Rock" Nelson has been building a prolific filmography of zero-budget backyard horror epics. Ranging from 5 mins to 5 hours in length and starring himself, his elderly parents and his girlfriend "Janet The Vampire Woman," Nelson's movies do not conform to conventional notions of plot, continuity or logic. A former Marine and Golden Gloves boxer, Nelson, now 59 years old, is a one-man crew and a relentless force of rampaging creativity... even if his work is rarely seen beyond his own basement. When Outsider host Zack Carlson heard that Nelson's work was to be honored at a Philadelphia Film Festival (and that Rock doesn't trust airplane technology), they embarked on a cross-country minivan adventure from his suburban Illinois home to Pennsylvania. The journey put Rock's incessant energy into overdrive, and the filmmaker attacked the American road with the same fearless intensity that has won him dozens of loyal fans across the globe.
After several failed attempts to break into the film industry, aspiring actor/screenwriter Laz Rojas suddenly realized how he was going to catch Hollywood's attention. He created the most ambitious demo tape of all time. He personally portrayed 102 different characters – every man, woman, child and alien – creating a universe populated entirely by himself. He submitted these tapes to every producer, studio and manager that he could find. He received no response. In the latest episode of OUTSIDER, a show that uncovers the singular minds behind the world's strangest movies, VICE tracks down Laz Rojas, now living under unstable conditions in Los Angeles, to uncover the mystery behind the man, his work and its unlikely rediscovery.
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