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Capsule review: ‘The Scenesters’
The first feature-length film from the Los Angeles comedic film group (and YouTube favorites) the Vacationeers, ‘The Scenesters’ inventively wraps a murder mystery in layers of filmic segments and threads into a funny, quirky effect.
Wallace Cotten is a would-be unemployed filmmaker (played by writer/director Todd Berger, a University of Texas alum) who takes a job as a crime-scene viedoegrapher with the Los Angeles Police Department.
Soon swept up in the action, Cotten and a couple of his wanna-be filmmaker friends find themselves the trail of a serial killer who is after women in LA’s trendy East Side neighborhoods. But Cotton and his pals try to crack the case sans polic, creating a documentary as they do. When the killer wises up to their investigation and he sends Cotton and crew his own movies of his crimes.
Told as a televised reality courtroom drama, ‘The Scenesters’ imaginatively unwinds through recollection, Cotton’s black-and-white crime documentary (an homage to classic film noir more than anything else) and the murderer’s own footage.
At times, it veers close to being self-consciously hip film meta-criticism. But the strong acting and genuinely creative story saves ‘The Scenesters’ from mere trendiness.
‘The Scenesters’ Written and directed by Todd Berger Screenings: 8 p.m. Oct. 25, Alamo Drafthouse Ritz. E. Sixth St.
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