The Muffin Man
Blaine Wasylkiw, in his own words, made, shot and cut The Muffin Man; a
dark and grim tale of the employees of Gonuts Donuts and the attack upon
them by a brutal, demonic, muffin-headed serial killer one night in
November. Starring little known talent in Calgary, but nevertheless
quality talent, The Muffin Man is not just the soon-to-be sleeper hit
for Calgary film goers, it's an in-a-coma hit.
Filmed over 13 days and taking only several months to edit The Muffin
Man debuted at the Telus Science Centre on August the first, 2006. A
special day. A day that also happened to be my 2 year wedding
anniversary. And what better way to acknowledge the love I have for my
wife, now of two years, than to take her to the free showing of what, in
Lloyd Kaufman's words, is sure to be the rising cult hit of the year.
And this reviewer would definitely agree. At just over 40 minutes long
we, the audience were subjected to a faulty dvd machine, the slightly
humorous attempts by two of the leads to entertain while the movie
skipped, hopped and cut itself to pieces in the faulty machine. But the
theatre was full of people who hadn't paid to see the movie, so a bit of
their time and the strong positive energy about the film made even the
glitches and malfunctions an appealing part of the experience.
The Muffin Man itself had huge helpings of originality. Death scenes
were especially well done considering the limited $1100 budget. I won't
go into the gory details of the death of most of the staff and those
around them, but you can rest assured and satiated that every death is
in some way baking related. Chris Ippolito in the role of Chad brought
a wry wit and exceptional timing to Anders J. Svensson's well honed
script. Allison Lynch was priceless in her role and brought to the film
a sarcastic and expression-filled bored Gonuts Donuts employee. I have
heard tell her death scene was particularly difficult and dangerous as a
stunt. The surprise star, in this humble reviewer's opinion, was the
Gonuts Donuts Manager played by Baljeet Balagun who was understated and
underused by the director and writer. Though his death scene was the
flat-out funniest the movie had.
The real reason to watch the movie though, is to see The Muffin Man
himself. Played by James Ireland, The Muffin Man sports a 3 foot tall
muffin with glowing red eyes of demonic doom. James Ireland is best
known for his over-internet voice acting as well as his love of
muffins. He brings a sense of demonic power to The Muffin Man and got
his inspiration for the role from the fact that "the lion sleeps
tonight." You can hear James go on at length about the lion he derived
his characterization from in the extras section in a hidden part of the
menu.
Though you may not have the opportunity to see The Muffin Man on the big
screen in the near or even almost-near future, there is hope for
enjoyment to be had. The Muffin Man is already on dvd format and can be
purchased at the strawberry jam-filled price of $10 at
www.themuffinmanmovie.com. I also implore Kara Green to present another
film to a baited-breath Calgary next year .
5 muffins out of 4 stars, and a donut.
Kyle Gould is a University of Calgary Graduate in
English devoutly trying to make the 25,000 dollar piece of parchment
not just a glorified ink blot. Currently it would serve better as a
Rorschach test. Feel free to throw some ink his way at wkkgould@hotmail.com.
