Most movies we see are by people who have “made it.” There are many reasons to love the films of Matt Farley and Charlie Roxburgh, and chief among them is how they articulate both the struggle and the necessity of remaining creative even when any hope of “making it” falls away.
Last summer, sold-out crowds packed a sweltering Spectacle to experience Motern Mania, a showcase of the films of Matt Farley and Charlie Roxburgh. Farley is a dedicated Spotify algorithm gamer who is probably the most prolific songwriter in the history of American popular music; streaming royalties for his untold thousands of songs — about poop, gluten, fear of the Pope, and everyone who’s ever had a birthday — fund a reasonable middle-class lifestyle, and support a flourishing filmmaking practice. Farley’s book, The Motern Method, is a Bible for aspiring outsider artists (sample chapter headings: “Release Everything”; “Embrace Nonsense”), and the films in which he stars, directed by longtime friend and coconspirator Roxburgh, are beacons of resourcefulness and, in this modern grindset world, refreshing examples of hustle culture directed to economically unrewarding but spiritually fulfilling aims.
Self-described “backyard movies” shot in accessible New England locations with a cast of friends and neighbors — each blazing their own their own unique trail through thickets of loquacious dialogue — the Motern films are charming and uncompromising advertisements for the DIY spirit, but are also distinguished by their canny realism about the life of the middle-aged small-town artist, plugging away in garages and grange halls for little to no tangible reward, and by their wildly inventive approach to genre, recombining the elements of classic creature features and exploitation films with a self-aware wit.
Following Spectacle’s initial streaming-only retrospective in 2020, Motern Mania has spread across North America, the tumor-like growth of their fame only increasing in its rapidity since last year’s retrospective. Farley and Roxburgh’s films have played to appreciative crowds at venues of increasingly legitimacy, including 2024’s TIFF precursor event Midnight Dankness. With the streaming release of their latest film, EVIL PUDDLE, now imminent, we’re delight to welcome them back to Spectacle with a new selection of old and new films, once again programmed in collaboration with Brianna Zigler.
Thanks to Peter Kuplowsky.
EVIL PUDDLE
Dir. Charlie Roxburgh, 2025.
United States. 95 min.
In English.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 4 – MIDNIGHT
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 10 – 5PM
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 17 – 7:30 PM, Q&A with Matt Farley & Charlie Roxburgh, moderated by Brianna Zigler. This event is $10.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 22 – 7:30PM
If you’re not counting one of the handful of alternate cuts for Heard She Got Murdered, Motern’s new release Evil Puddle marks Farley and Roxburgh’s triumphant return to color, for the first time since 2016’s Slingshot Cops. That stylistic choice is in-keeping with the film’s tone, a family-friendly homage of low-budget disaster films like Ants! and Tarantulas: The Deadly Cargo.
After a town’s water supply becomes tainted with evil water from an alternate dimension, it’s up to William Van Rhyn (Matt Farley) to keep his community safe while figuring out how to stop encroaching evil puddles from freezing his fellow citizens where they stand. Features an eclectic ensemble cast including a star-marking appearance by Motern Mania co-programmer Brianna Zigler!!!
FREAKY FARLEY
Dir. Charlie Roxburgh, 2007.
United States. 83 min.
In English.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 8 – 7:30PM
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 17 – 10 PM, Q&A with Matt Farley & Charlie Roxburgh, moderated by filmmaker Adrian Anderson. This event is $10.
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 21 – 7:30PM
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 31 – 5PM
Farley Wilder (Matt Farley) is an adrift young man, spending his days as a voyeur peeping in the windows of cavorting women. When he’s not living up to his reputation as the town weirdo, he’s disappointing his overbearing father. Though his father just wishes his aimless son (now “too old for college”) would finally get a job, Farley quietly brews with resentment until one day, it unleashes in a bloody wrath! Sent away for his crimes, who will save Farley’s small New Hampshire town when its woods become overrun by beasts known as Trogs?
A tribute to one of Farley and Roxburgh’s all-time favorite B-movies, Silent Night, Deadly Night 2, this early-career outing is also the Motern duo’s first and only foray into 16mm filmmaking. The muted colors and homey, old-fashioned quality to the film grain gives this autumnal-set horror film the perfect Halloween vibe.
METAL DETECTOR MANIAC
Dir. Charlie Roxburgh, 2021.
United States. 108 min.
In English.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 3 – 5PM
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 17 – Midnight, introduced by Matt Farley & Charlie Roxburgh. This event is $10.
MONDAY, OCTOBER 27 – 10PM
The Motern version of a noir sees Matt Farley and Tom Scalzo playing versions of themselves as music professors and amateur musicians who become citizen sleuths in the face of an unknowable menace: a weird guy with a metal detector. As the pair delves deeper into the dark past of their “Metal Detector Maniac” during sabbatical, they find him a surprising source of inspiration for their forthcoming album.
As ever, Metal Detector Maniac is a hilarious treatise on artistic hangups and the struggle for creativity. At the same time, it plays out like something akin to Matt Farley’s Blue Velvet, as Tom and Matt uncover the rot hidden at the heart of their otherwise “sleepy bedroom community.”