How sad is this?

An action-packed slog

A lot of fun.

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

When the narrator/director of the film begins with praising a neighborhood peeping tom for "getting away with it" you can pretty much guess what this is all about. Ostensibly an attempt to uncover the world of proto-snuff and other depraved 'underground film making', it becomes a numbing vehicle for it- tarting itself up with intellectual deconstructions and interviews with the participants of these movies and and ultimately revealing itself as another sad exercise of the... form.Bitter, sociopathic white males acting out their inner rage by staging graphically detailed depictions of the murder of one woman after another may be a lot of things, but one thing it will never be is *art*. Gaspar Noe's movies are better-produced versions of the same thing, and just as unworthy of your time. Proceed accordingly.2 Stars for genre fans' ability to harvest anecdotes/background information on these movies and that's about it.

From J.T. Petty (director of the halfway decent direct-to-video "Mimic 3: Sentinel") comes the bizarre, pseudo-documentary, pseudo-mockumentary, pseudo-scripted feature "S&Man" (pronounced "Sandman", not "S and M Man").The film is presented and introduced as a "documentary" about how, after his original intent to make a film about a convicted voyeur from his hometown failed, J.T. Petty decides to interview underground horror filmmakers who make simulated snuff films and B-movies. These subjects include real filmmakers Fred Vogul (director of the famed and nauseating "August Underground" series, and several other extreme films), Bill Zebub (another real underground director I am not familiar with) and a fictional character, Eric Rost (played by Erik Marcisak), whom is the creator and director of the "S&Man" video series. A series similar to Vogul's "found-footage" work, in which Rost plays an evil character who stalks women and murders them.Petty and his crew interview the three men (Vogul in particular giving some great insight into horror, underground film and extreme cinema, and why people are into these sorts of films), "Debbie D", an underground film actress, and several psychologists and therapists, talking about horror and its impact on society.And the first half of the film does come off as a rather compelling analysis of extreme horror and underground cinema, the reasons why it is made and has a popularity, and how/why it impacts people. Some of it is very troubling, some of it is insightful, and some of it is disgusting.However, the problem lies in the fact that this isn't a true documentary. The first half of the film is essentially an excuse Petty uses to make the second half, which is 90% a scripted story (though still in documentary style) feel more real. In the scripted storyline, Petty begins to question if Rost's "S&Man" series is real or fake, and Rost begins to exhibit evil, disturbing and dangerous tendencies, climaxing in an interesting ending.However, it felt very unneeded and unnatural. The scripted storyline is phoned in and obvious, and Rost (though compellingly and wonderfully played by Marcisak) just comes off as too much of a "character" in comparison to the real cast like Vogul and Zebub.So much insight and thought is placed into the real, documentary segments (as I said, Vogul has some very interesting things to say, and Zebub is a fascinating and seemingly troubled person), and they are so informative, that the scripted segments felt like too much of a betrayal. It would have been more compelling if Petty had either made a straight documentary, without the "Is Rost really a killer?" scripted storyline, or just made a full-on mockumentary about Rost. Combining the real and the fake is an interesting concept, and could work, but it just quite doesn't gel here.As it stands, it's not a bad film, but sadly "meh." An average 5 out of 10.

I'm surprised there are not more reviews also. Movie kept my attention and was informative; creepy at times and funny. It's not a masterpiece but I liked it better than "Perfect Host" which bored me at times. If you paid attention, you can see where the ending is going but it is done well and actually scarier than some the the high budget movies being produced.I never knew about the "Chiller" Festival - certainly opens your eyes to different strokes for different folks...Horror movies are such large part of society. There are so many TV shows and police dramas focusing on killing and we are obsessed with it. S&Man delves into the psychology of this, but I do think there was much more they could have discovered or analyzed.

Too bad, I guess this most excellent horror spoof is not getting the attention it deserves. Of course, I saw it with the live "reveal" at TIFF, so maybe my impression of it's entertainment value is skewed somewhat. The film itself is a deliberately cheap-looking "documentary" about the sleaziest, most misogynistic face of horror films - the no-budget, horror-porn indie films that exist only to show beautiful women being killed while undressed. Each film crew shown are real, however -- except one! This misdirection fooled my wife and I completely, and we had a huge laugh when the truth was revealed. After the credits rolled the director and lead actor came out to give the punch line. I hope the DVD of this film includes something to approximate the delight we felt at that moment.When this becomes available (i presume it will - almost everything does, eventually,) rent it, partake of some "attitude adjustment" and watch it in the company of one or more fellow horror fans. Satisfaction or your money back (in Canadian Tire bucks, natch!)