picture source: Drafthouse Films

According to Brandon (right) and Jason Trost (left), the sibling filmmakers behind The FP, it’s a film that’s been eight years in the making. After shooting it as a short in 2007 (though there was always a feature-length script, Jason assures), they shot the full version (on a budget of less than $100K) and took it to SXSW last March, where it was picked up by Drafthouse films (it opens in 26 markets today and is available for fans to vote to create their own screenings through Tugg.com). By the time they got to the screening I hosted at SF Indie Fest in San Francisco this past February, they were already veterans of the festival circuit, having played Fantastic Fest, Fantasia in Montreal, the Rolling Road Show and a handful of other places.

After screening the film to a raucous, largely drunken crowd (what do you expect when you let a site called “FilmDrunk” get involved), Brandon and Jason, joined by their sister Sarah (The FP‘s costume designer and a former Project Runway contestant), Lee Valmassy (L Dubba E in the movie), and Art Hsu (KCDC), took the stage for a Q & A. Valmassy, a seemingly soft-spoken, slightly-built eccentric who’d apparently just gotten back from China, addressed the crowd in fluent Mandarin, then took a backseat for most of the rest of the Q & A, bearing bizarrely little resemblance to the manic screaming Mr. T he plays in the movie. People at the after party walked right by him, having no idea they’d just seen him in the film. Meanwhile, the Trost siblings (Brandon the reserved eldest, Jason the brash youngest, Sarah the glib middle) showed that the hardest part of moderating a discussion with them isn’t getting them talking, but getting them to pause long enough for people to ask questions. They’ve got that sibling shorthand thing in spades. All the while Art Hsu, the glue holding the film together and the lone person on stage not from Frazier Park, competently played the role of professional actor like the professional actor he is. The dynamic was much the same the next day when I met Brandon, Jason, Sarah, and Art for this interview, trying not to sound like I’d woken up that morning with a wallet full of singles from a late-night trip to a strip club (no comment). Read our chat below (thank Adam for transcribing) or scroll to the end for the mp3 version.

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The FP hits 26 markets this weekend, and is available to create your own screening through Tugg. Here’s my review.

Drafthouse Films released the first ten minutes of The FP online a few weeks ago, and I’d suggest watching it, but truly, nothing can prepare you for the full film. The best way I can describe it is that it’s like watching sheer genius and utter retardation tongue kiss for 82 minutes.

“The FP” is short for Frazier Park, a tiny community in the middle of the Grapevine where the Trost siblings grew up (brothers Brandon and Jason wrote and directed The FP, sister Sarah designed the costumes). It’s one of the first towns across the Kern side of the Kern/LA county border, and thus, according to them, a place where their Hollywood special effects supervisor father could legally store his explosives. (Never discount setting, especially when the movie is named after it). Their fictionalized hometown becomes the setting for a turf war, between rival gangs the 248 from the North (the good guys) and the 245 from the South, whose costumes are like wigger-ized Civil War uniforms by way of Aspen Extreme (bad guy LDubbaE rocks a grill and wears a neon ski jacket with a shiny gold confederate flag on the back). They battle for control over Dawn’s Liquor Mart not with their fists, but through a fictionalized (and copyright-suit-proof) version of Dance-Dance Revolution called “Beat-Beat Revelation,” which is not only highly competitive, but sometimes kills people for some reason. You might expect a silly sketch about guys in moonboots dance-fighting in an underground warehouse to drag under the pressure to stretch into full-length film (and it does, a tiny bit, at a couple points), but the subtext, the utter ridiculousness of the entire enterprise, is really the heart of the narrative. That’s the joke, that someone would spend this much time and money on an idea this silly, it’s so beautifully absurd

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The FP might not be the gang movie set in the world of competitive dance videogames written in a vulgar, quasi-futuristic street vernacular the world wants, but it’s the gang movie set in the world of competitive dance videogames written in a vulgar, quasi-futuristic street vernacular the world needs. You wouldn’t think a movie with costumes as ridiculous as this and lines like “Yo, Clam Chowder, what are you for Halloween, a bitch?” would be able to stay compelling for 90 minutes, but believe it or not, it is. Rarely has a film found so many different ways to be ridiculous. Half the fun is just looking at the background actors. You can watch the red-band trailer below (NSFW for a language and a couple very brief background boobies), and, as a reminder for you Bay Area types, I’ll be hosting a screening of this bad boy in San Francisco THIS FRIDAY at which the filmmakers will be present. Bring ya moon boots.

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