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Vice Blog

THIS SEPTIEN MOVIE IS GOING TO BE GOOD

Whenever I run into Michael Tully, a filmmaker based in NYC, I'm usually on the verge of dropping and punting the American handegg of coherence. The first time was during a whiskey-powered set visit in Northern Ireland and the most recent hang-in was at Vice's Eastbound & Down fiesta in November. It was there I realized, albeit for the third time and once again guided by an ill-manneredly pointed finger, that Tully is an uncanny doppelganger of Jesco White, outlaw dancer of the Appalachia. It helps that Tully not only agrees with the designation, but to this day harbors a grudge at Vice Films for not being asked to audition for the lead role in White Lightnin'. I bring this up now, because a wild Southern hair has crawled up and tickled the much abuzzed ass of Tully's latest movie, Septien. It's a flick to keep a yellowed eye open for in the days and weeks ahead.

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On top of writing, directing, and emptying his bank account to fund Septien, Tully also grew one helluva Jesco beard to star as the main character, a moody tennis enthusiast named Cornelius Rawlings, who mysteriously returns to his family's farm after going AWOL for 18 years. "High school sports demons" figure in somewhere. I will be screening the film and speaking with Tully for the site shortly on the eve of its big premiere this Sunday at Sundance. But even before Harvey Weinstein has a chance to lick the pool of avarice off his brother's upper lip, Septien has earned toasts from David Gordon Green and Harmony Korine--whose wife Rachel costars--down at his casa in Nashville, where production occurred last summer. And in another encouraging sign, the film was scooped up before the fest by Sundance Selects via IFC Films, which distributed three of my favorite films last year (Enter the Void, The Killer Inside Me, and Police Adjective).

IFC decided Vice was the ideal spot to debut the film's trailer---one of those exclusive trailer deals that incite movie nerd sites to cut jujubes out of each others' throats and handfeed 'em to Kevin Smith over. Who are we to say we're better than those pogues? In an email, Tully described the project's MO thusly: "As someone who understands that certain movies aren't for everybody---this was actually one of the primary reasons for making this strange thing---I also won't take it personally if the most positive thing you can say about it is, 'What the fuck was that piece of shit?'" He went on to compare its up-all-night tone, slow burn horror slaked with amusing weirdness, to Bad Ronald. Good sign.

HUNTER STEPHENSON

Septien

will be available nationwide on demand 1.23 direct from the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.