Dust Up and The Dead Inside

I mentioned before IRS films.  Just another relic of the eighties.  A maverick bunch who took independent films to quirky, kooky limits.  They were aided and abetted by their ties to IRS records and the whole indie art scene.  I bring it up because both "Dust Up" and "The Dead Inside" remind me, at least in spirit, of the films IRS used to present.

Dust Up is set in the high desert of the mojave.  A place very familiar to indie film makers.  Here we have a hero with a dark past, an eye patch, and doing a lot of meditating outside his trailer.  His trusted friend is a true indian companion.  Together they do handy man work and get in trouble.  In this case they try to save a loser with a wife and child from a band of pretty much insane meth heads.  Led by Jim Jonesish ex vet they are mostly a fairly ineffectual lot (with the exception of Mr. Lizard), but there sure are a lot of them.  So in the end our heroes must band together and fight off methed off crazies.  It's a pretty exciting and bloody film that is balanced by dead pan dialogue like "Did you wash that?  I mean I dig the whole ear drum for an ear drum thing, but I can't live with an inner ear infection."

The Dead Inside is a bit more complicated.  It's a musical and it's sort of a horror piece.  Our heroes here are a couple.  One a writer the other a photographer.  They hate having to do their mundane jobs and sing about the joys of a zombie apocalypse.  Unfortunately the writer becomes possessed by a spirit and her soul mate now must try to save her... or fall in love with the new person inside her body.  As they sing their troubles they also flash back to her novel about zombies as a zombie couple tries to figure out how to get passed a locked door.

Neither film is perfect, and certainly low budget shows its seams here and there.  But on the other hand we should award those folks who try something just a little different.  So if you can dig something outside the box give both of these films a look.