“Rock and the Alien” (1988) [dir: Denis Adam Zervos]

Since late 2016, I’ve been a member of the Philadelphia Psychotronic Film Society. The group is dedicated to the weird and unusual corners of the film world. Every first and third Monday of the month we gather at PhilaMOCA where a chosen member selects a film for the group to watch.

Here’s the thing… the member doesn’t have to announce what they’re screening ahead of time. You have no idea what you’re going to see until the film starts. Some programmers will be kind enough to give a trigger warning on social media for certain films, others will give them in their introduction. The member doesn’t even need to say anything. The group operates under the assumption that, with the wide umbrella the term “Psychotronic” entails, you should be prepared for anything.

One week, it could be a Christian action movie. The next week, it could be an edit of “The Wizard of Oz” where every word spoken or sung is put into alphabetical order. One cinematic vein that gets mined a lot is the vanity project. I have one friend who refers to it as the “divorced dad” film.

The most well known films of this subgenre would be “The Room” or the works of Neil Breen. Usually the (male) star is also the writer, producer and director of the venture. In some rare cases, like the movie screened last Monday (May 1), they also write and perform their own songs! It seems to be taking the idea of the auteur to its most extreme.

Sometimes you’ll get the outsider art that is John De Hart’s “Champagne and Bullets” (aka “Road to Revenge” or “GetEven”), best exemplified by this clip of Mr. De Hart performing his song “Do the Shimmy Slide”…

Then again, you might get “Rock and the Alien”.

This 1988 film’s writer/director/star Denis Adam Zervos (also listed on IMDb as Dino Zervos and Dionysius Zervos) also performs his own songs. In it, Tyler Upshaw (Zervos) is an aspiring rock star who is playing in seedy bars while also acting as a bagman for his crime boss manager. All the events in the film occur as a potential nuclear conflict is brewing between the US and the Soviet Union.

One night, a beautiful woman appears out of nowhere before him. She goes by the name of Lazer and says that she is an alien and has searched for him for 212 years, and that he is the only one who can bring peace to the world. He, of course, sleeps with her almost immediately. The next day, she explains that his voice can now reach a frequency that will pacify all who hear it. He then proves it by using his “dulcet tones” to disarm a mugger.

Those quotation marks are necessary, because this man’s voice is so bad!! He fancies himself to be the second coming of Bruce Springsteen, as evidenced by his ‘denim on denim’ look in the concert scenes. The only thing he’s missing is the songwriting skills, stagecraft or any charisma whatsoever.

Now, when I usually did these write-ups on social media, I’d have a YouTube link to a scene or the trailer. I’d love nothing more than to show you have amazingly bad it is. However, I can’t find any clips anywhere. Most of the pictures online are VHS boxes of it from Greece or Spain. Apparently the film had only been logged in on Letterboxd about 30 times before this screening. This showing probably doubled that number.

Anyways, this type of vanity project, where they see themselves as a tortured genius that is being held back by a cruel indifferent world, really rub me the wrong way. It’s a level of self-importance and self-indulgence that really rubs me the wrong way. A film like “Champagne and Bullets” is designed to make John De Hart out to be a badass and general renaissance man. Neil Breen’s movies have turned more into vague screeds into what he thinks is wrong with the world. But with “Rock and the Alien”, Denis Adam (Dionysius) Zervos thinks that he can actually change the world if everyone would only listen to him.

I remember a review of M. Night Shyamalan’s 2006 film “Lady in the Water” that was published in one of the local alt-weeklies. In the film, Shyamalan casts himself in a role as a struggling writer who finds out that the book he’s writing will inspire a future president and that his words will change the world for the better. In making this an integral part of the story, the critic compared it to walking in on your roommate masturbating to a picture of themselves. That about sums it up.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad I saw this, especially with an audience in tune to these movies. But I’m not consciously seeking out many more of them in the near future.

The Philadelphia Psychotronic Film Society meets every first and third Monday of the month. Admission is $5.00 for non-members. After attending three screenings, you’re eligible to become a member for $50.00, which gets you a membership card, pin, free admission to screenings, and the opportunity to program a screening in the future. You can find announcements for future events on the group’s Facebook page or through PhilaMOCA.org .