Someone Dies!
A deadbeat detective investigates a cryptic note that leads to the discovery of an incomprehensible kitchen sink.
Justin Petty is creating lo-fi sci-fi indie comedies from the enigmatic space of Houston, TX. He’s been compared to Joel Potrykus with his mentally overtaxed slacker film ‘Nothing Really Happens,’ but with his second feature ‘Someone Dies!,’ Petty gives us his unique take on a comedy of errors, as three farcical characters are faced with the puzzling nature of time travel and…assholicism.
Think of your favorite movie. You’re thinking of HEAT, right? Michael Mann’s HEAT. Great. So we’re both thinking about HEAT. You know what makes HEAT great? The cinematography, the sound editing, Pacino’s performance, the script and – most importantly – the fact that someone dies.
Every great movie has someone dying. Think about it! JURRASIC PARK has that guy that gets eaten on the toilet. JAWS opens with someone getting eaten by a big ol’ shark! SPIDER-MAN doesn’t happen if Uncle Ben doesn’t kick the bucket. Therefore, it’s death that makes movies worth watching.
I’ve always been fascinated with the idea of dying….but also interested in making a bottle movie! I suppose covid lockdowns kind of coaxed these ideas to the front of my mind’s queue in a way that I didn’t realize until I wrote this statement. So I wrote this bottle movie and filled that bottle with three (or four) of the most asinine characters I’ve conceived so far (except for maybe NOTHING REALLY HAPPENS’ Carl) with the clear understanding that someone had to die.
Through the assistance of the great and talented Joseph Graham (“Jim Jenkins,” producer) and Amy Anderson (“Jane,” story editor) I was able to figure out who should die and how that fit into the larger story I was trying to tell. And you know what? I think they did a damn good job of polishing the rusted jalopy of my ADHD mind into a well-oiled Mercury Cougar. So thanks to them.
As I continue with this statement and my own self-discovery, I’m finding that SOMEONE DIES deals with several themes that have been present throughout my life: clinging to the past through willful ignorance, generational bigotry, childhood trauma and abandonment, toxic masculinity, and learning to let go.
All in all – and stop me if you’ve heard this before – we made Primer. Except it’s Primer with idiots. And it’s by idiots. And it’s probably for idiots (not you though, you’re great and smart).
So yeah. When I’m giving my acceptance speech, I’m going to thank the filthy Russkies for inventing covid so that my idiot friends and I could make this beautiful, funny, weird, idiotic thing full of nice people trying their best… and us killing one of them.
-Justin Petty