sf indiefest

Roxie Cinema 2/10/2007 11:45PM

Victoria Theater 2/18/2007 9:30PM

“Why would anybody watch a scum show like Videodrome?” - Barry Convex

Do you want to watch S&MAN?

S&MAN (pronounced “Sandman”) is a movie about voyeurism and underground horror, focusing on our balance of sympathy and sadism when we watch death. JT Petty, a filmmaker responsible for his own underground horror films (e.g. “Soft For Digging” that played here a few years ago), tracks down and interviews psychologists, scholars, actors, and most importantly—the underground and extreme filmmakers themselves.

Horror is a specific pleasure: the more we suffer watching it, the better. We want horror movies to hurt us. S&MAN asks why we’re compelled to watch, and more than that, why we like it. The brains of the film are the interviews: a horror scholar, a sexologist, and a forensic psychiatrist describe for us the connections between voyeurism, culture, and sadistic watching. The heart of the film comes from the filmmakers who choose horror as their specialty. Through interviews, on-set filming, and home visits, JT and his crew are pulled deeper into the world of underground horror. Boundaries are crossed—between filmmaker and subject, witness and participant, reality and fiction. The movie hones in on the topic of violence and sadistic watching, boiling it down to a discussion about snuff, about real murder on film, and the audience who will actually pay money to watch this stuff—people like you perhaps?