• Wide Release
• Director: Dusty DePree
• Written by: Dusty DePree, Ron Jordan
• Running Time: 88 minutes
• Language: English
• MPAA Rating: R - Restricted
• Cast: Gabrielle Carteris, Madeline Zima, Randy Spelling, Tasha Taylor, Michael McMillian, Ashley Peldon, Reggie Lee, Sara Van Horn, Elliott Grey, Stephen Gabriel, Ron Jordan, Josh Minnie

Video Archives in Hermosa Beach became famous when two of its employees emerged from behind their cash register to write and direct a film so commanding that it would go on to influence and inspire an entire generation of young filmmakers. Those two men were Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary and the film was “Pulp Fiction”… and their rise to prominence was something of legend amongst the hardened film geek community. Triggered by their love of movies and their job, which gave them instant access to thousands of old and new titles, a veritable heaven for a film geek like myself, Tarantino, Avary, Lawson, Martinez, Magill, Jordan and numerous other Video Archives employees, were said to have engaged in grand and learned debates over films with each other and customers; they were alleged to have spent many long nights screening movies, and, over bong hits, probing into the deeper analytical underpinnings of said films, even if they didn’t necessarily have any. I remember purchasing a copy of Paul A. Woods’ ‘The Film Geek Files’ just days after it came out so that I could further research the exploits of the Video Archives crew. Even if much of it was hyperbole, as Tarantino insisted in the years after, I couldn’t help but revel in the idea of a video-store-geek-turned-celebrated-auteur. Just the notion of it gave me a serious boner. It gave me hope and I'm sure hope to all those poor kids who couldn’t afford to skate into some expensive film school on their parent’s money. In its own strange way, the theory gave the nonentities out there the sense that they too, someday, if they wanted it bad enough, could make their own film.. and that they mattered.

In the years since, I actually spoke to a person who was friends with Tarantino and the Video Archives crew back in the day (psst he was an editor on "Eddie Presley"). At my prompting, he regaled me with tails of a beach house where they would gather and of reading an early draft of “From Dusk Til Dawn”, noting that Tarantino couldn’t spell worth a shit and that the ending was much different from the one that showed up in the film. Scott Magill worked on “Creeptales”, but he never did much after that. I asked him about Roger Avary, citing Avary’s incredible talent – and how he is truly brilliant even though his work has gone under the radar in recent years. Sadly, the one person I never mentioned was Ron Jordan. Strangely enough, it is Ron Jordan and his involvement in “Dimples” that has sent me scrambling for my copy of ‘The Film Geek Files’ again and wishing I could contact buddy again.

Working as a writer, producer and actor on the film, he and his co-writer, director, Dusty DePree, should be nothing but commended. As an entry into the horror genre, “Dimples” stands nicely on its own. It is also loaded with the kind of things one might expect of a Hermosa Beach steward, which will surely appeal to the hardcore movie geek crowd. An example: watch for the nasty scar crawling down the face of Jordan’s detective character. It’s never explained and doesn’t factor into the film in any way, but, alas, it’s there and it does its job. What is its job, you ask? Well, instead of spending the time to draw up a back-story to the detective, the audience takes one gander at that nasty scar and they will create their own back-story for this cop. Jordan and DePree let the audience fill in the blanks. Looking at the scar one can only guess that this cop, at some point in his life, got caught up in some seriously bad-ass shit. It’s simply brilliant.

As a camping trip draws near, and the encroaching reality that she will be a virgin no longer, a young woman, Frances (Madeline Zima), begins to experience some rather alarming daydreams -- muddled images of little girls and demons. When her friend’s arrive early in the morning to pick her up, she musters up the courage to tell her boyfriend, Billy (Randy Spelling), that she has a bad feeling about the whole thing. Sadly, she doesn’t share these same concerns with her mother (Gabrielle Carteris), insisting that everything will be fine. Before heading out, Henry (Michael McMillian), the aspiring filmmaker of the group, always with a camera in hand, gleefully shows off the recent footage he’s shot for a slasher movie he’s working on called ‘Dimples’. The group is unimpressed, to say the least, but it succeeds in getting them in the right frame of mind for a trip out to the woods. Gathering up their friend, Brittany (Ashley Peldon), who derives much of her income by masturbating over live cam feeds, Frances is offered the chance to experiment with Ecstasy however the audience is escorted out of the room before we get a chance to see if she actually partook. Brilliant. As the trip commences, tempers quickly become frayed, as Brittany clashes with her ex-BFF, a smug, French spewing, chain-smoking Kim (Tasha Taylor), who has tagged along on the trip. Time has taken its toll on this friendship and despite Billy and Henry’s best efforts to rein them in; it’s a losing battle. With her face buried in her sketchpad, Frances is in her own personal battle – one that she’s desperately losing. As Billy’s hand finds its way into her lap, she reacts with an unassuming innocent smile; but she’s hiding something.

During a pit stop at an off the beaten path gas station, necessitated by Frances’ sudden and uncontrollable vomiting fit, things take a turn for the bizarre as they spy a young man (Michael Biscotti) in the store window masturbating to Frances as she stands washing off the spew. Tempers flare and the situation erupts, leaving the young man bloodied and battered and cackling as Billy and the group charge off in the motor home. Heading on down the road, snaking deeper and deeper into the woods, Frances spots a young girl standing on the road. Interestlingly, nobody else aboard sees her. At this point, the film pushes away from standard operating procedure, choosing instead to function in this vague trippy dreamlike state for the remainder of the film, minus a few interspersed segments where reality (or at least we assume it's reality) shine in. Like a loopy acid-trip, it’s hard to decipher reality from fantasy -- which makes the trip all that much greater. The stranded group suddenly realize that somebody or something is lurking around their motor home and wants to kill them.

The minimal story, which is about as minimal as it gets even by slasher-film standards, features nothing we haven’t seen before, for sure, but it does what it does with enough flair and style that it is sure to be an interesting ride. It might even evoke a few twinges of fear; the sequence on a stairwell with Billy and the 'Thing' sitting on the ledge, I’ll admit, scared the shit out of me. Hardly a revelation, the ending and the identity of the killer is quite obvious to anyone paying attention to the clues. DePree and Jordan are happy to muddy the waters by introducing the perverted hillbilly, but that's just good cliche fun, which is quickly subverted in the final moments. The killer, obvious from frame one, is reminiscent of past films, including “Psycho”, “Night Screams” and, most recently, “Shrooms”, but there’s a certain sugar-high quality to this variation that I really enjoyed. There is this fuzziness to it all, and the oddball infatuation, which emerges from one character, more insightful than appearance and actions might suggest, towards another, reeling from something horrible in their past, adds just another peculiar layer to this film. The strange thing about it is how unalike these two are as both are products of arrested (and, or, perverted) development. Religious themes are explored, and not with kid gloves, treading the territory that suggests that few good things come from sexual repression -- spurned by over-reaching religious teachings, in this case, a father and a daughter. Other factors weigh in, but its the religious smybolism that is so on display throughout. It is one character’s inability to react to the situations around them, that incites the tragedy that arrives at the film’s end. A sort of emotional retardation, propelled by religion.

Madeline Zima as the virginal Frances offers up a rather sombre performance this time around, which is about 180 degrees from her work in “Legacy” where she played an airhead collegiate with a penchant for sex with strangers. Headlining the movie, she spends a good deal of her screen time staring profoundly off into the distance, as if contemplating each and every thing around her. I think she’s trying to convey emotional breakdown or something but a lot of times, it just seems like the director was off camera whispering, “Now give me sad… Now give me happy.” There was something missing -- a certain genuineness to the bewilderment on display. As a viewer, I found it hard to connect with her on any level. The scene where Brittany (Ashley Peldon) and Kim (Tasha Taylor) break bread and get all melodramatic and shit failed to work for me, although they were both good in their roles. Taylor seemed to be working hard to make more out of her paper thin character ie the French accent was a nice touch. As Billy, Randy Spelling (2005's "Hoboken Hollow") is of the minor sleazebag variety -- the kind of guy you might drive home after a party but you wouldn't want to hang out with other than that. A scene where he eyes up Frances’ vomit covered sketchpad and chooses to leave it, speaks greatly to his character. Throughout, the audience sways back and forth between liking him and hating him, and not for once, do we understand how Zima's character ended up with such a jerk. Gabrielle Carteris (2007's "Plot 7") as Frances’ concerned mother was a welcome sight, considering all the things she's been through the past year. Unlike some of the others, her character seemed absolutely genuine. I felt her pain.

The writing by Dusty DePree (2004's "Golden Showers") and Ron Jordan (1999's "Catfish in Black Bean Sauce") is unique. Not sure if that's the word I'm looking for but I guess it'll do in a pinch. Cleverness arrives in such gems like; “This map smells like the contents of Frances’ stomach.” and “You’re telling me she’s a fucking ding dong." Not sure if it's brilliant, but I know that I enjoyed it. I also enjoyed the little quirky details that I mentioned earlier ie the scar, the ribs etc... Before I close, I have to mention the final moment in the film, merging Jeffrey Michael’s gorgeous original melancholy score with a fleeting slow motion shot of the killer being lead away by police; this absolutely got to me. What a beautiful, transitory moment and what a way to lead the audience out of the movie. Just amazing. Seek it out!!! I'm hoping Ron Jordan and his pal DePree can parlay this cinematic undertaking into future success.

Click this link to see more images from "Dimples"

Click this link to see the trailer for "Dimples"

Click this link to see a behind the scenes interview with Madline Zima.