After a wildly successful festival run in 2021, the offbeat lo-fi-sci-fi horror-comedy LAGUNA AVE is now on most transactional VOD platforms available across North America and on Arrow’s streaming player: www.arrow-player.com/browse.
The film was a critical and box-office hit at FrightFest in London in August 2021, with critics calling it a “gonzo schlockfest;” “a weird and unruly beast;” “a mishmash to horror tropes, black-hearted evildoers, drones, drink and drugs, sex and enemas, paranoid beliefs, conspiracy theories, and artificial intelligence;” “a demented vision;” and “definitely a thing that I watched,” along other accolades.
Critically acclaimed LAGUNA AVE. is out on various platforms in the US and North America including iTunes, Amazon Prime, YouTube, Google Play and Microsoft Store. VOD is also now available on Sky store in Ireland and the UK.
This David Buchanan-directed DIY gender/genre-bending slacker lo-fi-sci-fi horror comedy defies easy description, following one man’s mystical misadventures in and surrounding a rambling Echo Park apartment. Starring Russell Steinberg (ADVENTURELAND, DAY OUT OF DAYS, BELOW THE BELT [as “Johnny Fayva”]) as Russell, a middle-aged, burned-out TV editor with a prosthetic hand who futilely searches for work in Hollywood’s brutal, exploitative underbelly. His former boss (Paul Papadeas [AN INNOCENT KISS] owes him money, his partner Rita (Stephanie Brait) is indifferent, always out of town and inaccessible, and his new downstairs neighbor Gary (Jamie Hall/James Markham Hall Jr. [NEIGHBORS]) keeps him awake at night with mysterious, disturbing noises. But everything changes one evening when Gary pays Russell a visit and introduces him to his sinister world of renegade accelerationism and a collection of outrageous, unstable but captivating fellow travelers and co-conspirators. “A film found on a trash heap after the apocalypse.
That was Paul’s pitch when he sent me the script for Laguna Ave.,” Buchanan recalls. “I loved its many contradictions: cheap but ambitious, sleazy yet intellectual, funny and dark. It perfectly captures the trashy times we’re living in.” The two former bandmates and producer Ali Barone bootstrapped the production, drafted friends to help out, and let everyone add their own individual brand of insanity to the mix. “The production took on a life of its own, like some a self-propelled, malfunctioning cyborg bent on self-destruction.”
Director DAVID BUCHANAN started making films in his local woods aged 14, and to this day is still driven by that same DIY thrill: of having a fun idea, getting a team together, and making it all happen with a budget of £20. Writer/Producer PAUL PAPADEAS has produced four features including AN INNOCENT KISS with Burt Reynolds in 2019, which premiered at the Vancouver’s Just for Laughs Film Festival and is repped by Shoreline