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C O U R T E S Y O F B R YA N H I LT N E R MOVIES Scree ner GET YOUR REPS IN Friday the 13th (1980) Duh. 5th Avenue, Oct. 13-15. Laurelhurst, Oct. 13-19. Paris, Texas (2006) What better way to honor the late, great Harry Dean Stanton than with a movie that’s mostly about his weath- ered face? The story of a semi-mute, estranged father named Travis is full of lonely LA and West Texas scenery and Ry Cooder’s gor- geous slide guitar score. Hollywood, Oct 12. RACHAEL PERRELL AND DONNY PERSONS IN CORPSE. Playtime Budget Effects PORTLAND HORROR FILMMAKER BRYAN HILTNER HAS TURNED NECESSITY INTO IDIOSYNCRASIES. BY SHANNON GORMLEY sgormley@wweek.com A week before CORPSE is scheduled to screen at NW Film Center, Bryan Hiltner’s new short fi lm still isn’t fi nished. “We’re in frantic post production right now,” says Hiltner “It’s just a stressful mad scramble to get it all done.” Like most of the Portland filmmaker’s movies, CORPSE is a psychological thriller. A couple (Donny Persons and Rachael Perrell) check into an Airbnb where they get into an argument. But the tense, domestic scene con- tains a dark, supernatural twist. Their relation- ship starts to fall apart along with the movie’s sense of reality when their argument bookends a bizarre dream sequence in an eerie forest. But until about a month ago, Hiltner was going to make an entirely different film. It would also be set in an Airbnb, but that Airbnb would be run by a couple who cut open the skulls of their guests to perform experiments on their brains. Depicting live brain surgery would have required special effects, though, and crowdfunding didn’t go as planned. “It got really grim where we didn’t get almost any money,” says Hiltner. After a month, he had raised less than $2,000 of his $16,000 goal. “I wrote a new script in 48 hours and we just made a different movie that was simpler and cheaper,” he says. What made the alternate CORPSE different from Hiltner’s previous movies wasn’t that he couldn’t meet his budget, it’s that he was trying raise a substantial budget in the fi rst place. “My other short fi lms, we had no money from the get- go,” he says. “So I wrote for having no money.” Hiltner is a Beaverton native who learned how to make movies by throwing himself into the deep end of Portland’s independent film scene, starting with Attack of the Flix. Curious Comedy Theater’s monthly series screened new shorts by Portland filmmak- ers. Hiltner challenged himself to enter as often as he could, and ended up making five movies over the course of just six months. “There’s probably a lot of videos that I should mark private on Vimeo just because they don’t necessarily seem that profes- sional,” says Hiltner about his early work. Now almost a decade into his career, Hilt- ner’s made upwards of 16 short films with moody lighting and glossy cinematography using low to nonexistent budgets. Most of the fi lms that will screen this Wednesday along with CORPSE were created in just a few days. Necessity is what lends Hiltner’s movie their idiosyncrasies. He says he’s more interested in feature-length films than shorts, but shorts require far less resources (his first full-length film has been in prog- ress for seven years). The unintentional advantage of short horror movies is that they’re conducive to sustained, uncomfort- able moments and condensed, whirlwinds plots. Without a budget for special effects, Hiltner forgoes jump scares and gore for movies that are more unsettling than scary. Hiltner’s filmography is dotted with odd Portland references. “ When you’re mak- ing low-budget movies, the first thing you do when you write the script is go ‘okay, what do I have at my disposal,’” he says. Another fi lm that will screen this Wednesday is Elena Vance, about a woman murdered in her home on Peacock Lane while hun- dreds of unaware bystanders take pictures of the Christmas lights outside. The movie’s premise was partly inspired by the opportunity for a free filming location— Hiltner decided to make Elena Vance not long after one of his friends moved into a house on Peacock Lane. Similarly, CORPSE was filmed in another friend’s Airbnb. Though it’s somewhat accidental, there’s something darkly funny about a horror film set in an Airbnb or on Peacock Lane. Hiltner’s constant output helped con- nect him with Portland’s independent film scene. “I’ve helped out a lot of friends on their movies and those are the same people that work on my movies,” he says. “Now when I have these impulses like ‘let’s make a movie,’ all of a sudden there’s 10, 15 people who are like ‘okay we’ll do it.’” According to Hiltner—who was once stalked by a set designer hired off of Craig- slist—Portland’s artistically hungry fi lm scene has been one of the greatest tools for making movies. While filming Spunk of the Reaper earlier this year, actress Alysse Fozmark had a serious allergic reaction to the catered lunch. “At the end of each take, she’d go to the bathroom, vomit, come back and do the scene,” says Hiltner. “Nobody’s making money off of this movie. People like that just want to make art and they’re willing to be miserable to do it.” Though he’s deep into the most stressful part of making CORPSE, Hiltner says that the lack of funding might have worked out for the best. “I actually like the script a lot better,” he says. No money means no bloody brain surgery scenes, but it also means a more subtle, insid- ious approach to creating an unsettling film. “All of a sudden we didn’t have the money to show scary things,” says Hiltner. “We have to present ideas that hopefully creep people out.” SEE IT: Just Because You’re Paranoid Doesn’t Mean They’re Not After You: Short Films of Bryan Hiltner screens at NW Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium, 1219 SW Park Ave., nwfi lm. org. 7 pm Wednesday, Oct. 11. $9. (1967) Jacques Tati’s mostly silent comedy is one of film’s most masterful of masterpieces. The visu- ally striking movie’s six different storylines are set in a claustrophobic, futuristic Paris. NW Film Center, Oct. 16. Scream (1996) Wes Craven’s post-ironic slasher flick Scream was both a send-up of and homage to horror, cred- ited with bringing the genre out of the direct- to-video doldrums. Laurelhurst, Oct. 11-12. The Thing (1982) Somebody in this camp ain’t what he appears to be. John Carpenter’s tense horror masterwork features lots of disgust- ing practical effects and Kurt Russell reaching maximum Kurt Russell- ness. Plus, Hollywood will screen the movie in 70mm film. Awesome. Hollywood, Oct. 13. ALSO PLAYING: Academy: Scanners (1981), through Oct. 12. The Omen (1976), Oct. 13-19. Clinton: The Craft (1996), Oct. 16. Hollywood: Strangers on a Train (1951), Oct. 11. The Wizard (1989), Oct. 12. The Sound of Music (1965), Oct. 14-15. Rocktober Blood (1984), Oct. 16. Joy: Curse of the Swamp Creature (1966), Oct. 11. Kiggins: Friday the 13th Part IV: The Final Chapter (1984), Oct. 13. Laurelhurst: Frankenstein (1931), Oct. 11-12. Dracula (1931), Oct. 13-19. NW Film Center: Earnest and Celestine (2013), Oct. 14. Kubo and the Two Strings (2016), Oct. 15. Willamette Week OCTOBER 11, 2017 wweek.com 41