Death Print Film Premiere
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August 8, 2009
Colony Theater, Miami Beach, Florida
Review and photos by Diana Poussin
On the evening of August 8th, the Miami artsy scene trooped out in combat boots and Guevara berets to the Colony Theater to watch Aiden Dillard’s latest film, Death Print. The film — which involves several shootout scenes with a Cuban communist operative and a vigilante art dealer — is a reverence to the 1980s' movie series Death Wish. What really caught the audience’s attention, though, was the film’s heavy dose of eccentricity, quirkiness, strawberry-syrup-blood, and hard-to-miss rubber latex.
Before the film premiered, there was an on-stage performance by some of the actors in the film, who are also musicians. To welcome the audience, Jose El Rey, acclaimed Miami solo-artist, opened with a pink shirt and white skinnies and a Katy Perry look-a-like by his side shouting “You are hot!” at the audience. His Latin spice made our feet stomp to the rhythm, while heads swayed to the beachy, electronic beats emanating from the speakers. Jumping off the stage, he was followed by Otto Von Schirach, a Miami electronica god, to double up with performer Notorious Nastie and his two accompanying ladies in black leather and red extensions.
“I couldn’t care less if you enjoyed the performance. I enjoyed it!” shouted Nastie, winking at the two gothic muses bending over and strapping their legs around his vast torso.
Director Aiden Dillard
Schirach belted out a Death Print homage of unimaginable beats that turned the classy architecture of the theater into a bouncing night club with scattering lights and Nastie’s two side dancers grinding up on him. “I couldn’t care less if you enjoyed the performance. I enjoyed it!” shouted Nastie, winking at the two gothic muses bending over and strapping their legs around his vast torso. After the performance, director Dillard and actor Ted Vernon gave an introduction to the film.
Death Print, amidst all its comic glory of random synchronized swimming vampires and a television psychic, is based on revenge. After Arthur Basel, a communist spy photographer with a fetish for Fidel Castro, kills the daughter of Ted Vernon (a.k.a the Charles Bronson of Miami and a true badass), Ted recruits a good cop/bad cop duo to die for. Silicone Detective RubberDoll and Maximum Capacity, wrestler and part-time law enforcer, team up to scope out the murderer and find an 18th century rococo painting which Basel stole from Vernon’s gallery the day of the killing.
Notorious Nastie
This painting becomes a symbol of hate and heretic two-sided revenge, becoming the true "Death Print." To Basel it signifies the painting his father died for at the hands of Vernon at the Bay of Pigs rebellion, and to Vernon it signifies justice for his daughter’s spilled blood.
In this death race, we encounter some quirky characters with a lot of Miami “flavah," such as Otto Von Schirach, the musician that is tied to Basel by his record deal and is forced to put up with his capitalistic art shoots and social party banters about political conviction and “communist chic” style. There's also Schirach’s real-life Miami Bass Warriors partner, Jose El Rey, who makes a quick cameo, to get his eyebrows a-sizzling! And there’s also international sensation RubberDoll, who puts her life at risk to dig her nails into this racy case and strut her bone-crushing latex get ups. And last but not least we have the TM Sisters, who bring roller skating to new heights and find Vernon’s painting through their whimsical personalities and symmetric bangs.
Notorious Nastie and Otto Von Schirach
backstage before the screening
Death Print has a very homey feel. Its homage to Sweat Records, Churchill’s Pub and the local Miami artsy panorama as a whole accentuates the story line as a personal quest for revenge gone wild. Its comical, witty script make all three shootout scenes and the demolition of a red Cadillac into our tiny bay seem…okay, if not great! The appearances by local artists and actors make the Cuban slang, the sausage intestines, the scavenger hunt, the garage battles and the killer communist all the more real and relatable. And the beautiful house music star with taxi suspenders and deep-set light blue eyes, that is Schirach, makes all girls swoon at the unconventional hottie of this film. After all, this is an unconventional film of tongue-in-cheek comedy and a dose of Miami Beach culture.
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