Like an analog Frederick Wiseman, legendary cinéma vérité documentarian Larry Wessel (Ultramegalopolis, Taurobolium, Eric & Shaye) has tackled a wide array of eccentric subjects and captured some of underground cinema’s most striking and unforgettable visuals, equipped solely with his camcorder and a nearly non-existent budget. An aesthetic terrorist of the highest order, Wessel’s simplistic, fly on the wall approach to documentary filmmaking has allowed his subjects to reveal their stories and actions in the most candid and uninhibited means conceivable.
In Sex, Death & the Hollywood Mystique, Wessel turns his camcorder lens on the seedy and salacious underbelly of '90s Hollywood by profiling the lives and confessions of several enthralling Tinseltown luminaries. Notorious L.A. novelist and true crime scribe John Gilmore (author of Severed, The Garbage People) shares intimate and lurid details about the Manson Family murders, the “Black Dahlia” Elizabeth Short, the “Pied Piper of Tucson” killer Charles Schmid, and his early friendship with a young James Dean. Legendary filmmaker Curtis Harrington (Night Tide, Whoever Slew Auntie Roo, Queen of Blood) recalls his personal interactions with classic silver screen legends Gloria Swanson and Marlene Dietrich. Famous Monsters of Filmland publisher Forrest J. Ackerman gives a memorabilia tour of his jaw-dropping “Ackermansion” and recounts setting Metropolis director Fritz Lang up on a blind date. Most poignantly, Wessel cross cuts all these anecdotes with a day in the life of sex worker Kelly Monroe, who candidly preps and plans for an evening of clients from a single, seedy hotel room locale. Featuring additional appearances by Karine Elkins (Superstarlet A.D.) and disabled trans icon Sandie Crisp aka The Goddess Bunny, Wessel’s Sex, Death & the Hollywood Mystique combines the true crime, biographical, and travelogue asesthetics of documentary filmmaking into one sprawling and unforgettable 2.5 hour SOV epic.
