By Theron Neel
Devi Snively has led several lives over the years. She’s worked as a translator, writer, editor, ballerina, adjunct professor…you know, the usual stuff. But all that life experience is taking a backseat to her latest career choice: filmmaker. While Snively has done a little bit of everything, it’s her work in the cinematic arts that is earning awards and garnering attention for this talented woman.
I first became acquainted with La Snively’s work last March at the Pretty Scary Blood Bath Film Festival. I’d previously seen her name but had only a vague notion of who she was. Then I saw her short film Death in Charge, and I realized she was a talent to be reckoned with. I made a note to check out her work and moved on to other things. Imagine my delight when, a couple of months later, a package containing all her short films showed up in the my mailbox.
Watching Snively’s work in chronological order is an interesting experience. To date, through her production company Deviant Pictures, she’s made six shorts (Teenage Bikini Vampire, Confederate Zombie Massacre, Raven Gets a Life, Meat Is Murder, I Spit on Eli Roth and Death in Charge) and one feature (trippin’). I’ve now been lucky enough to see all of her work, but today I’m going to focus on her short films. To view them sequentially is to observe the development of a smart, gifted artist. Personally, I think of her work in two phases: Before Raven Gets a Life, and after.
In her first two flicks, Teenage Bikini Vampire (2004) and Confederate Zombie Massacre (2005), you see an artist learning the ropes and filling her toolbox, becoming familiar with filmmaking and experimenting with the medium. The films are good, but somewhat insubstantial when compared to Snively’s later work. Teenage Bikini Vampire is a fable about Sadie, a Gidget-like vampire who wants nothing more than to live the life of a surfer girl. Of course, her distaste for sunshine makes that impossible, but her loving family steps in to make her dreams come true. Confederate Zombie Massacre details a “true story” about a little-known Civil War battle that ends in zombie heaven (or hell).
Confederate Zombie Massacre
Even though Teenage Bikini Vampire was her first film, some chief components of Snively’s style are already on display. Her bold use of color is in full bloom, and her interesting camera angles are present. Snively’s shot choices play a major part in her storytelling and are one of the most interesting things about her films. Also demonstrated are her puckish sense of humor and her love of heightened reality. In almost all of her work, everything is a bit askew—not much; just enough to throw the viewer off balance. In Confederate Zombie Massacre, we see Snively learning to how to handle a large cast and choreograph action. She also gets her hands dirty with gore effects, a major color on any horror director’s palette.
But with Raven Gets a Life (2006), Snively takes a big step forward. Both of her previous flicks were tongue-in-cheek comedies, but here she paints with darker tones. She also drives home a couple of her recurring themes, specifically: life should be more than survival, and what it is (or isn’t) to exist in the modern world. We meet another young vampire girl, Raven, who just isn’t engaged with her after-life. As often happens these days, a doctor decides she’s depressed and medicates her. That doesn’t fix her, but Raven does eventually find her cure—and it is a heart-warming surprise. Snively still makes us smile, but this film is unquestionably more serious in nature. It’s also much more accomplished technically than her previous work. She has modified her use of color, allowing it to accent and help drive the narrative.
With the release of her remaining three short films, 2009 was a busy year for Snively. Her next flick, Meat Is Murder, revisits the themes of Raven Gets a Life, but it does so in comedic way. In Meat Is Murder, we meet two modern hipster drones, living the modern disposable life like the zombies they are. They sit in front of their TV anesthetizing themselves with brain-numbing programming, drinking their generic beer and stuffing their faces with processed foods—in est, I think we called it “feeding the tube.” They eventually realize the mystery meat in their freezer has the power to kill. Soon, much like the monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey, their refrigerator is drawing other drones and people are dropping like flies. Once more, Snively illustrates the tendency in modern life to treat the symptoms rather than address the problem, but it’s done in such a fun, post-modern way, you don’t feel like she’s beating you over the head with it.
In I Spit on Eli Roth, Snively allows her radical side to emerge. Banding together with fellow filmmakers Amy Lynn Best and Jane Rose, Snively takes on Eli Roth and anyone else that might not employ horror to its best effect. Though Roth is more symptom than problem, they take aim specifically at the “Chick Vision” feature on the Cabin Fever DVD. This short also allows the makers to ask the critical question: “Don’t you want us to cut off Eli Roth’s balls?” If that’s not reason enough to see it, I don’t know what is. Maybe it’s the tongue-in-cheek tone or the fun performance from Amy Lynn Best. Perhaps the best reason to recommend it is because, although it’s definitely her most humorous work, it makes Snively’s point extremely effectively. Yes, Devi, you can catch more flies with honey—especially if the honey is torturing and killing Eli Roth.
That brings us to Death in Charge, which I consider the summation of Snively’s work so far. Made under the auspices of the AFI’s Directing Workshop for Women, Death in Charge was inspired by the Columbine school shootings and shares the life lessons learned by Death and the little girl she’s accidentally charged with babysitting. Essentially a meditation on the current state of the world, this film is a darkly comic reverie that finds Death in the unexpected positions of pupil, teacher and caretaker. The shifting tone is masterfully balanced—comedy gives way to tragedy, which gives way to wonder, and finally, to inevitability. Snively employs a clever narrative device here: In the “real” world, the wonder of life is often revealed to us through death, but in the film, it is Death that is taught the wonder of life. Death in Charge is an artfully made film that delicately balances several themes and tones. In lesser hands, this flick would fall apart. It’s to Snively’s credit that it comes across as thought-provoking rather than precious or clumsy.
For all the viewpoints she communicates in her films, Snively is always a subtle creator—she’s never preachy. She’s also a director that works quite well with her actors. She seems to particularly enjoy working with children, who I suppose give her an interesting dramatic window through which to view the world. I’ll be back with a look at Snively’s feature film, trippin’, soon, but now I’ll close with a caveat. Please don’t let my rather academic look at these flicks put you off. Though Snively is smart a filmmaker, her work never feels sterile or cold. I mean, she’s dealing with life and death here, people. It doesn’t get any messier than that.
www.deviantpictures.com
