Directed by JD Brynn & Abe Goldfarb
Written by Mac Rogers
It doesn’t take much to make a movie these days, but what does that mean from a quality perspective. Well, even with a massive budget, built-in fanbase, and years of goodwill in a franchise doesn’t make you’ll make a good film *cough, cough* Fast X. But what does it take to make a low budget movie good. The backbone of any good film is a good story. Sure, there are tons of elements that go into making a movie, most of which contribute to the overall quality of the film: cinematography, performances, editing, lighting, sound, effects, production design, costuming, etc. etc. But the screenplay/story/plotting is among the most important. A film with good performances, good cinematography, can still be bad, but the one thing a film can’t really ever overcome is a bad story. First Time Caller is among the most independent, lowest budget movies I’ve maybe ever seen, but it’s a good movie. After premiering at the 2022 Seattle Film Festival, I can’t for the life of me figure out why it took until now to garner distribution.
Brent Ziff (Abe Goldfarb) is an internet shock-jock, the type that logs on to be a troll, and his audience eats it up, calling in just for him to eviscerate them and their stupid, pointless, lives and problems. His show, “Brent Free” takes an unexpected turn one night when a “long time listener, first time caller” Leo ‘Shorty’ Short (Brian Silliman) calls in with an ominous prediction. At first, Shorty’s story seems both funny and bizarre, but when his strange predictions start coming to fruition, Brent’s audience numbers skyrocket, and the brash confidence that built his internet persona starts to crumble.
This is the lowest of budgets. Abe Goldfarb as Brent Ziff is the only actor who appears on screen for the vast majority of the film (save a few inserts), which puts a lot of pressure on him as a performer to carry the film. But he also has Brian Silliman to help him along the way, albeit only as the voice of a caller. Goldfarb is good, no doubt. His demeanor and transformation throughout the movie as his world comes crumbling down around him is both believable and horrifying. But on the other hand, he seems slightly miscast as an asshole. I’ll bet he’s a really nice guy in real life, and in a bizarre way, I think it takes someone who is at least slightly an asshole to pull off an asshole performance. There’s just enough there to make it seem too performant and not natural. But his back and forth with Silliman really carries the film.
It’d be impossible to talk about this film without also mentioning the wonderful, little seen, likely forgotten independent film from 2008 called Pontypool, which is similarly structured as a sci-fi thriller centered around a radio DJ going through a virus outbreak in his town, all behind the mic. The unseen is often the most horrific, we get to fill in with our imagination while also being left wondering just how bad it might be out there. And, of course, both these films harken back and owe a lot to Orson Welles and what he did in 1938 with his radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds, which truly fooled and terrified his audience back then. It’s a genre that goes back to radio, but is not often utilized in film. Pontypool and First Time Caller are examples of how effective it can be. If it were perhaps more widely depicted, I’m sure there would be bad examples too.
At just 75 minutes, the film really zips by, and I can’t imagine it being much longer than it already is. Another technique that often goes underutilized in the film business is the short runtime. First Time Caller is taut and suspenseful, it’s to the point and doesn’t add any filler that might take away from that mood and atmosphere which is expertly crafted just to be a little longer. What I really liked about the film is how it can be interpreted many different ways. I’m sure there are more than these two, but I found First Time Caller to both be a political commentary and an investigation into the lonely existence of the internet troll. It can’t be a mistake that Brent’s audio visualization is colored red, the irreverent, doubting character. Meanwhile, Short’s is colored blue, the voice informing the world that it’s too late, there’s nothing we can do to save the Earth from these natural disasters. And in the end, Brent, the internet troll, is left all alone in his house in the wilderness, nobody to help him, love him, comfort him, and help him survive. Is this a great film? Perhaps not, but it’s certainly a good one and worth checking out if you’re into the genre.
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