The Craven Sluck tells a sordid tale of unhappy marriages and infidelity and stars Kuchar fan favourites Bob Cowan (in drag), Florain Connors (in way way too much make-up) and, of course, George Kuchar (with a Mod hair-do that puts Roger Daltrey to shame). Though it may be unclear what exactly a 'sluck' is, this movie is worth a watch. I promised more Kuchar and here it is in all its campy, soap-operatic glory!
Excerpt from an interview with Stop Smiling:
SS: The Craven Sluck (1967), with its trashy send-up of domestic melodrama, seems so ahead of its time from this vantage point (it could easily be a proto-John Waters film). You didn't like this film after it was made and suppressed it from distribution for a number of years. What are your feelings toward it now?
MK: I like the picture, I accept it. It was unfair for me to develop a complex about it. But sometimes that happens. You make your own pictures, and sometimes you have a complete breakdown. Because you put a lot of energy into it and then you're depleted. You're looking at it so many times, and sometimes you become allergic to yourself. You actually become allergic. It's a strange reaction and it can be dangerous. There's only been a very few films that I said, 'Nah.'
SS: What are the other ones?
MK: I've destroyed them.
SS: Really?
MK: Yeah. I take them completely out of circulation. But they were minor, not major things. You see, there's morally, a film can fail and all, but what it does, it's not contemptible. It's more like a fall. They're like expressions, and when they fail it's bad in that morally you've failed the idea or the concept. The people who watch it would perhaps feel it. That happens very, very rarely.
I also say you can be your film's worst enemy. Because you've seen it so much but you have to work on it in all these stages. When I work on a picture I do the entire thing myself. I do the lighting, the cutting,you get so involved that there comes a point where you can build a complex. Also, when you finish a picture you're very vulnerable. Sometimes when you invite somebody that maybe you shouldn't invite over to a screening and they say a negative remark, it can be extremely devastating. And unfairly so. What happens is you've opened yourself and given yourself and then something like that can all of a sudden change you because you've gotten to the point where you're getting allergic to yourself, you're beginning to self-hate. With The Craven Sluck it might have been that.
Maybe there's another part of me that's a perfectionist. I was very free-wheeling with The Craven Sluck. I was not meticulous with my set-ups and exposure readings. My perfectionist side said, 'Ugh, I'm too sloppy. Maybe this picture's too off the wall.' Eventually I think that wound up being a plus for that picture! [Laughs].
Technical Information:
Title: The Craven Sluck
Year: 1967
Country: USA
Director: Mike Kuchar
Source: DVD9 Retail
Video Codec: 480p-x264
Container: .mkv
Size: 669 MB
Length: 0:20:53
Programs used: Womble 5.0, JoinVobFiles, RipBot, DVD Audio Extractor, MKVMerge
Resolution: 720x480
Aspect Ratio: 4:3
Video: MPEG 4 H264 @ 4800 kb/s
Frame Rate: 23.97
Audio 1: Dolby AC3 English @ 192 kb/s
Audio 2: Director's commentary- Dolby AC3 English @ 192 kb/s
Subtitles: No
(Our prefered x264 player is Media Player Classic.)
Craven Sluck Megaupload Link
This is also included as a bonus feature on the Sins of the Fleshapoids DVD