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Reviewed by:
  • The American Astronaut, and: Stingray Sam
  • Stacey Abbott (bio)
The American Astronaut ( Cory McAbee US 2001). Commodore Films/BNS Productions 2004. NTSC Region 1. us$20.00.
Stingray Sam ( Cory McAbee US 2008). BNS Productions 2008. NTSC All regions. us$18.00.

In my recent review of Ernest Mathijs and Xavier Mendek's The Cult Film Reader (Science Fiction Film and Television 3.2, 2010, 316-19), I noted the absence of any discussion of cult science fiction and suggested that this was a missed opportunity for the editors but more importantly also an open opportunity for the sf scholar. This seems to be a comparatively untapped area of both cult film and sf studies. The DVD releases of two films by indie actor/musician/filmmaker Cory McAbee - The American Astronaut and Stingray Sam - is, however, a reminder that cult sf is alive and well. The American Astronaut follows 'interplanetary trader' Samuel Curtis (Cory McAbee) as he flies from planet to planet in a tin-can of a space ship making a series of trades, including a cat, a box containing the cloned DNA of a 'real woman' and a fifteen-year-old boy who will become King of the female-populated planet of Venus, all while being pursued by his arch nemesis Professor Hess (Michael De Nola), a madman who blasts into dust everyone with whom Curtis comes into contact. Stingray Sam, on the other hand, is a six-part serial in the tradition of Flash Gordon (Stephani US 1936), following the eponymous hero (McAbee) and his sidekick the Quasar Kid (Crugie) as they attempt to repay their debt to society by tracking down and rescuing a kidnapped little girl. These films serve as an effective reminder that sf films need not be blockbuster, CGI-filled extravaganzas. Instead, McAbee's films are whimsical, low-budget experiments in sf filmmaking and are like nothing I have seen before . . . or rather they are like a great deal I have seen before but mashed together in unusual, sometimes surreal, but often comic ways.

What makes these films stand out is their aesthetic form, for McAbee's work is a mosaic of art forms, bringing together 35mm filmmaking, animation, collage, still photography and music. Similarly, his films fuse disparate genres together into a distinct hybrid structure best described as surreal musical westerns in space. While many sf westerns - from Star Trek (US 1966-9) to Star Wars (Lucas US 1977) to Firefly (US 2002-3) - use the western motif to undermine [End Page 295] the notion of the high-tech, futuristic space film by presenting space as a literal frontier, both The American Astronaut and Stingray Sam mix sf with the western and the musical to undermine the portentousness of the sf film and to tarnish the traditionally glossy finish of cinematic or televisual depictions of the future and outer space. Recent television series such as Firefly and the reboot of Battlestar Galactica (US 2004-9) have in particular made great claims for presenting sf realistically, capturing the ragged quality of life on the frontier planets or humanity on the edge of extinction. As they are broadcast on mainstream television, however, the visual style of both series remains quite polished and sophisticated through their use of hand-held camera, long takes and intricate composition. In contrast, McAbee's films would be well suited to the classic midnight screenings of the 1970s as they are aesthetically ragged, using disjunctive aesthetic styles and low-budget sets and special effects to represent space as a rough and grungy series of planetary outposts filled with outcasts. The American Astronaut in particular has a coarse, grainy quality that reinforces its cult status. That is not to say that there is no beauty in the films. The still illustrations of astronaut Curtis's space ship flying through the air are beautiful in their simplicity as is the expressionist lighting on the mining planet where Curtis picks up the Boy Who Actually Saw a Woman's Breast. Stingray Sam contains many similar moments of aesthetic charm such as the use of collage animation to convey key information that will help Sam in his pursuit of the little girl...

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