Film Reviews: The Marshmallow Mystery Tour and Zero Budget Heroes (Warped Dimension Film Festival)
By: Joseph Perry (Twitter - Uphill Both Ways Podcast)
Marshmallow Mystery Tour
Winner of this year’s Warped Dimension Film Festival Top Feature award, The Marshmallow Mystery Tour is a frenetic outing that is part nostalgia fix, part public service announcement, part conspiracy theory piece, and part wacky road trip movie.
Cowriters and codirectors Jeffrey Beals and Matthew Beals set up their film with protagonist Marty (Jeremy Rishe) getting a last-chance shot as a cameraman with the assignment of making a visitors’ center video about a new marshmallow-based theme park called Mallowland. Mallowland employee Sweet Tooth (Mark Beltzman) takes Marty on a road trip to help him find the candy-loving inner child inside him as they visit real candy-based tours and festivals. Along the way, Marty is exposed to the dark side of candy manufacturing and sugar harvesting — told mostly through archival news footage — which leads The Marshmallow Mystery Tour into territory that walks a fine line between propaganda and public service piece.
The film gets heavy handed with its message but may save some viewers from adult-onset diabetes. Was Big Sugar Alternatives or Big Stevia behind the production of The Marshmallow Mystery Tour? On a surface level, this offbeat film will dash childhood memories of beloved sweet treats from chocolates to cereals to flavored drinks while skewering the mascots of those products, but the history and little-known facts it exposes are certainly food for thought.
Zero Budget Heroes: The Legend of Chris Seaver & Low Budget Pictures
Before viewing director Zach Olivares’ engaging documentary Zero Budget Heroes: The Legend of Chris Seaver & Low Budget Pictures, I had never heard of its subject, prolific independent horror comedy filmmaker Chris Seaver, who has a whopping 72 directorial credits to his name on IMDB — and that is one of the main points of the film: How can a person who has that many turns at the helm, having worked with Troma kingpin Lloyd Kaufman and also had heavily viewed work on Netflix, not have landed a shot at some sort of funded project?
One reason may be that Seaver’s output is for a highly limited audience, albeit a very dedicated one, that goes in for subsophomoric attempts at gross-out gags, along with content and titles that can’t be mentioned on this family-friendly website (though a few of the latter that can be are The Weirdsies, Paranormal Investigation Agency, Ski Wolf, and I Spit Chew on Your Grave). Truth be told, I won’t be seeking out any of Seaver’s fare, but I can’t help but root for the guy as he continues living his lifelong dream of making movies with a group of friends who work for free and hoping that his output will make some people laugh and have a good time. Olivares’ documentary, which won the festival’s award for Best U.S. Feature Film, is an enthralling watch and a touching look at a man who has spent most of his life doing what he loves through good times and difficult ones.
The Marshmallow Mystery Tour and Zero Budget Heroes screened as part of Warped Dimension Film Festival, presented by Another Hole in the Head, which took place May 14–15, 2022 online. For more information, visit https://www.ahith.com/mrholeheadwarpeddimension.
Joseph Perry is one of the hosts of When It Was Cool’s exclusive Uphill Both Ways podcast (whenitwascool.com/up-hill-both-ways-podcast/). He also writes for the film websites Gruesome Magazine (gruesomemagazine.com), The Scariest Things (scariesthings.com), Horror Fuel (horrorfuel.com), B&S About Movies (bandsaboutmovies.com), and Diabolique Magazine (diaboliquemagazine.com), and film magazines Phantom of the Movies’ VideoScope (videoscopemag.com) and Drive-In Asylum (etsy.com/shop/GroovyDoom).
If you found this article interesting consider becoming a Patreon supporter. That is how When It Was Cool keeps our website and podcasts online, plus you get lots of bonus content including extra and extended podcasts, articles, digital comics, ebooks, and much more. Check out our Patreon Page to see what's up!
If you don't want to use Patreon but still want to support When It Was Cool then how about a one time $5 PayPal donation? Thank you!
