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Daily Dead is proud to debut the music video for “Ratimis,” the title track from the full-length album by electronic artist Brahm, available beginning today from Swedish Columbia Records. Directed by cult filmmaker Damon Packard, a lifelong independent director known for movies like Reflections of Evil and Foxfur, the “Ratimis” video is comprised of clips from a number of horror films all set to the pulsing electronic score of Brahm's music.

Brahm (aka Chaz Barber), a lifelong fan of horror, exploitation, and genre films, incorporates his passion for cinema into his songs in ways that are both understated and overt, but always unique. “Whenever I work on music, there is always a film, TV show, scene, score from a film, or even some simple bit of TV nostalgia that I remember seeing as a kid,” Barber says. “I always attempt to create some kind of visual through my songs and...

There are few real-life figures more beloved in American cinema than Steven Spielberg. He’s earned that adoration without question, but his worship retards the dialogue around his work. Like his buddy Colonel G. Lucas, Spielberg is a brand first, a businessman second, and a filmmaker last.

It’s time to loosen up the conversation. Spielberg is less an auteur and more Hollywood’s greatest journeyman, a master craftsman whose natural talent allows him to tackle almost any material. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t common themes that run throughout his work. A lot of breath has been devoted to his sense of wonder and awe, his parent’s divorce, his love of children. But there’s a darker current to his work, one that appears less subtly in thrillers like The Conversation, Three Days of the Condor, and other conspiracy films of the New Hollywood era. It’s a sense of paranoia,...

Licensed distributor of shorts by renegade filmmakers such as Damon Packard (Reflections of Evil) and Rodney Ascher (Room 237), The Druid Underground Film Festival is proud to distribute their first feature film: Hipster Holocaust.

Hipster Holocaust is a “Dark… Visceral… impressive film” (Horrornews.net) that plunges you into “all the hipster carnage a boy could ask for” (Pet Gorilla) as two depraved killers crash a party full of obnoxious snobs in a night … Continue reading →

Horrornews.net...

The main objective of the films of Damon Packard seems to be to induce a nervous breakdown in the viewer. The chaotic rush of plot, the flashing special effects, the densely layered sound design, the complete abandonment of logical cohesion add up to provide a literal experience of the old hyperbolic catchphrase “senses-shattering”!

Yet for all of Packard’s blustery whirlwind of pop culture references that he layers upon layers in each outing, it’s clear that the heart of his films comes from a deeply personal place, whether it’s the spiritual and cultural anxieties felt by the main character — played by himself — in Reflections of Evil or the woes experienced by a sci-fi filmmaker in SpaceDisco One.

Foxfur, Packard’s latest offering, revolves around a heretofore unconfessed obsession of his: UFO conspiracies. Well, who’s to say if it’s an “interest” or an “obsession,” but either way...

Written and directed by Damon Packard

Featuring Paris Wagner, Rigg Kennedy, Khris Kaneff, Yvonne Kirsten, Amanda Mullins, Stef Dawson, Erica Rhodes, Angel Corbin, Cassie Yeager, Sarah de la Isla, Marita Gumsrod, Tessie Tracey, Lori McShane, Cassandra Nuss, Bob Ellis

Damon Packard’s newest heavily-edited masterpiece is the (almost) feature-length fantasy film Foxfur, about a young woman and her dangerous obsession with dolphins, Plieadians, energy, and new age book shops.

However, because of a constricted budget which led to an inability to shoot the entire narrative script, and thanks to Damon’s irrepressible genius for utilizing editing techniques and special effects, Foxfur becomes a non-linear experience about alternate realities starring a bevy of charismatic, and very different-looking, actresses all playing the same character in various and often unrelated scenes. Foxfur has probably the most cohesive narrative structure of all of his films, but it is definitely not linear and is more...

It's no secret that Damon Packard is an undisputed genius. The trailer for his new feature-length sci-fi-fantasy film Foxfur is no less any geniusness than his previous geniusnesses.

Packard is best known for his surreal, 1970s-inspired, homage/mockery of Steven Spielberg, Reflections of Evil, which included the best thing I've ever seen: Schindler's List: The Ride (in the original version; the Netflix version is somewhat less fun).

Foxfur, on the other hand, looks shockingly more linear. It features a bevy of young and fragile-y goregous actresses playing the same character: Foxfur. She's caught up in some kind of alien cult involving women with Efquest names, dressed as fantasy warriors in an alternate world, I think. I'm fucking stoked. I love this kind of contemplative, energetic, editing-heavy filmmaking (see Doggie Woggiez, Poochie Woochiez). Speaking of Doggies and Poochies, I am a sucker in a big way for cute shit in movies,...

This is an old behind-the-scenes video for a TV pilot on the making of Damon Packard‘s underground film classic Reflections of Evil. It stars Mark Borchardt and Mike Schank, capitalizing on their fame from the hit documentary American Movie. The official description of this video says its been edited down from its original version, which may explain why it focuses more on Borchardt than on Packard. Still, for fans of Packard’s work, or for those who need to be introduced to it, it’s an interesting little peek into his world.

While Bad Lit: The Journal of Underground Film has never formally reviewed Reflections of Evil — which is mighty stupid on our part — we did choose it for one of our Most Outrageous Moments in Underground Film. The way Packard transformed the Universal Studios and Knotts Berry Farm theme parks into “Schindler’s List: The Ride” is a...

Doggie Woggiez, Poochie Woochiez

Directed by Commodore Gilgamesh and Ghoul Skool

Doggie Woggiez, Poochie Woochiez is not a film; it is an experience unlike any other.

Other filmmakers have only hinted at what Doggie Woggiez, Poochie Woochiez is; Damon Packard, with Reflections of Evil comes close, but the people at Everything Is Terrible take it further than Packard could ever have dreamed. Packard still uses his own footage when he edits; these guys don’t film a thing. They take forgotten VHS tapes and edit out the worst/best parts of them into separate videos. And it’s genius, which is why they’re still doing it.

Doggie Woggiez, Poochie Woochiez is their third feature-length endeavor (the first two are kind of-movies, mostly their shorts strung together) and it’s absolutely unfathomable how anyone has the patience that these people have. There are literally thousands of cuts between different videos,...

This is the 9th post in a series covering the most outrageous moments in underground film history. You can follow the entire series here.

Film: Reflections of Evil

Director: Damon Packard

Year: 2002

With usually very little money to work with, underground filmmakers have to come up with ingenious ideas to bring their grand visions to life on the cheap. In that regard, perhaps it was Damon Packard who pulled off the underground film world’s most daring stunt.

Packard’s 2002 film Reflections of Evil is an epic-sized deconstruction and commentary on the world of pop culture, featuring a mish-mash of ’70s ABC TV Movies of the Week, Steven Spielberg adoration, California cults, junk food addiction and more.

To create a nightmare world of existence spiraling out of control in the modern age, Packard filmed several extensive sequences at various Los Angeles area amusement parks, most notably the world-famous Universal Studios.

If you weren’t at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood on Jan. 27, 2010, you missed out on what was one of the most epic underground film screenings and Q&A sessions in history. During this marathon 4-hour session, two titans of filmmaking — Clu Gulager and Damon Packard — screened and discussed their work, including Packard’s Reflections of Evil and Gulager’s Fucking Tulsa. Unfortunately, the event went straight to Packard’s head, as evidenced in the above clip from Packard’s Q&A.

Read More:American Cinematheque: Hollywood Outlaws: Clu Gulager and Damon PackardFucking TulsaOn DVD: Craig Baldwin’s Mock Up On MuOther Cinema: Animal Charm...

Jan. 27

7:30 p.m.

Egyptian Theater

6712 Hollywood Blvd.

Los Angeles, CA

Hosted by: American Cinematheque

Prepare for a night of intense weirdness and cruelty with films directed by underground filmmaking legend Damon Packard and veteran character actor Clu Gulager. Screening will be Packard’s magnum opus strangus, Reflections of Evil, as well as the world premiere of Clu Gulager’s Fucking Tulsa; plus two of Gulager’s older shorts, John and Norma Novak and A Day With the Boys.

Packard and Gulager will be in attendance to answer questions — oh, and there will be questions — between the films. Also in attendance will be Gulager’s sons Tom and John; plus John’s wife Diane Avala Goldner.

Reflections of Evil is a feature-length head trip about an obese watch salesman (Packard) who is haunted by the ghost of his dead junkie sister and who wanders the streets of Los Angeles in an angry,...