Pursuant to the trailer, Galley Friend (and Bend, OR, native) Mark Hemingway actually watched The Wolfman’s Hammer on YouTube the other night. He has this to report:

I confess that my primary interest in The Wolfman’s Hammer initially stemmed from the fact that it was shot and produced in my hometown of Bend, Oregon. The opening shot of irrigation pipes on ranch land with mountains in the background was practically calling to me. It’s a great shot in its own right, but I spent many an hour when I was growing up moving those things around for pocket money.

The trailer looked good, and I guess regional pride was enough of a hook to get me to sit down and watch a 67 minute film uploaded to YouTube with not a single comprehensive review having been written about it. And I’m glad I did.

There are some mild spoilers ahead, but the story is ageless and simple. The film is billed as “gut-shot white-trash Shakespeare” and that’s fairly on the mark. It’s essentially a gritty tale of star-crossed love cutting against familial allegiances. The titular Wolfman is an ex-con crystal meth dealer named Aaron who carries around a framing hammer as “asshole insurance.” Aaron is (sort of) trying to go straight. He just wants to make enough money dealing so he can get out of his rented trailer and get a place where he can record heavy metal music.He’s also trying to look out for his cousin who’s living with him, a recent high school grad and generally smart kid who’s damaged by his relationship with his drug-addicted father. When his cousin falls in love with the 14-year-old daughter [sister -ed.] of one of the Wolfman’s biggest and meanest customers, you can see the inevitable tragedy coming, but by then you don’t want to look away.

Frankly, it’s remarkable that Brad Elmore, a 26-year-old kid working on a budget of $10,000, managed to make such a hypnotic and assured little film. Due to some relationships too depressing for me to contemplate, I know a thing or two about what life as a meth head in Bend, Oregon happens to be like. Shakespearean drama aside, as a true-to-life representation of the hopelessness and circumstances surrounding white-trash central Oregonians, The Wolfman’s Hammer nails it.

It helps that the star of the film, Greg Hill is an unbelievable find; he’s got moments where I swear he’s closing in on young-Mickey-Rourke levels of onscreen magnetism. Cameron Brian Saunders who plays the Wolfman’s cousin is also good — I swear, his whole character was eerily reminiscent of about five kids I knew in high school in Bend. (Go Lava Bears!) Indeed, nearly the whole cast was impressive in light of the fact they were all local amateurs.

The film’s direction is confident. It’s quite coherent and the exposition is handled deftly. There had to have been the temptation to draw out the grotesquerie of the characters and situations, and yet it’s Elmore’s restraint that makes the whole thing work. Finally, it must be said that this thing in no way looks like a movie that was shot for $10,000. It looks terrific, and has an incredibly naturalistic look. I watched most of it on my iPad in bed — it’s on YouTube, remember? — and there were times when I felt so immersed I could almost smell the cigarette smoke of Aaron’s trailer. A lot of inventiveness and thought also went into the composition of the shots. Even a transition shot of a Hospital sign is stunning. Whoever the director of photography/cinematographer/all-of-the-above was on this film deserves kudos.  (Good news aspiring filmmakers: If this cheapo movie is any indication, top notch camera equipment is becoming more affordable.)

Now time for a reality check: There are times when it is very obvious that this is a low-budget movie, and unfortunately an undue number of those moments come during the film’s violent climax. (Which to be fair, had to be the most technically challenging part of the movie to act and shoot.) There are times when it’s slightly indulgent — the fact that the lovers bond in a conversation about David Lynch movies is the kind of thing that a film student lacking self-awareness would write rather than challenge himself to write a scene providing any real insight into teenage love.

I could certainly quibble more, and I’m struggling with whether my critical judgment might be excessively blinded by the fact that I’m much more likely to connect with a film about this highly particular regional subculture than the average viewer. But I’m definitely willing to say that at a minimum that this film is much, much better than it should be given the budget, and will provide ample inspiration to other young and broke filmmakers. And as far as Greg Hill’s talent as an actor goes, after seeing him in this movie I just assume that in five years I’ll be complaining about what a Hollywood famewhore Bend, Oregon’s former hometown hero has become.