Intensely Independent: The Micro-Budget Films Of Blake Eckard

Fierce, gritty and micro-budget, the films of Blake Eckard are also incredibly controlled, intensely personal and genuinely disturbing expressions of true independent cinema. Guaranteed to agitate the viewer's soul are Bubba Moon Face (2011) and Coyotes Kill for Fun (2017), two amazing feature films in Eckard's oeuvre. After a newborn baby is dumped in his lap, Horton Bucks (Tyler Messner) finds himself at the center of a tangled web of familial malevolence in Bubba Moon Face. Shot in a scant five days, with Eckard's own child at it's center, the film manages to create an oppressively authentic atmosphere of rural rancidity where love and kindness are in short supply. But a sliver of hope comes with the character of Horton, leading to what might be the least-awful resolution to an impossibly bleak situation. In Coyotes Kill for Fun, a backwoods babysitter agrees to help an abused mother of two escape her dangerous boyfriend, but his brother is headed back to the area and he has vengeance on his mind. In contrast to the swift production of this disc's companion feature, Coyotes Kill for Fun was filmed over three years in Missouri, Montana and L.A., with a trio of cinematographers shooting various chunks (Eckard, Bubba cinematographer Cody Stokes, and indie legend Jon Jost). But despite it's on-again, off-again production, the film maintains a totally consistent - and utterly nightmarish - vision.