the tube: the best internet indies of 2022
Looking back at the year's best low-budget independent films available for free on the internet.
Welcome to the tube, where we highlight movies on the internet // it’s awards season so we’re looking at my picks for the best true indies (truly independent, micro-budget films released for free on YouTube and such) of 2022 //
I dipped outta Twitter right before Elon and everything, not a brag you dig, nor a declaration that I’m totally “off” or “leaving.” Just happened to hit rock bottom with the damn thing when I did and slugged away. Would that I’d replaced bad habits with good ones but I’ve mostly cashed in all that doom scrolling for more time on YouTube, only marginally better ‘cause YouTube is where cinema lives in our busted cyberpunk era baby.
Been on this whole DIY independent film beat for a minute now, and as the COVID years go on, the why’s have only become clearer. Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about this thing I read in Nadine Smith’s HOUSE OF 1000 MARKS on the “enduring discourse of professional wrestling: sport or not sport?”
Society perceives and treats sports as a populist form for the masses, whereas art is a rarefied niche for the elite, a partitioned-off VIP section in popular culture, where media goes to effectively die. When a medium forsakes its ability to truly shape and influence the public and slinks into the corner of the museum, its demise becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. To put professional wrestling up there with opera and ballet is to say that it’s no longer for the people, but for collectors and investors and donors, for an ever-shrinking community of weirdos whose precious hobby will die off with them.
Not making a one-to-one comparison here but there’s definitely a similar dynamic at play with the state of cinema. At its best, film is a people’s medium. And by that I don’t mean like corporate mass entertainment or whatever. Even the most ambitious (not pretentious) art films should be broadly accessible, both literally and figuratively. Only catch is, as long as movies were at the center of the culture, the technology to make them was siloed off and gatekept by the industry.
“This is a business where the buyer gets nothing for his money but a memory. What he bought still belongs to the man who sold it. That's the real magic of the movies. And don't let anybody tell you different.”
-Louis B. Meyer, Mank (2020)
For now, it seems Hollywood is on a bit of an upswing, people are going back to theaters and whatnot. I’m obviously here for that. Hell I still go to the theater more regularly (and subscribe to more streamers) than just about anyone I know. It was a great year for Hollywood movies and your boy’s a fuckin’ simp for ‘em man, what can I say. But if the whole ass medium stays solely in the hands of the corporate or establishment media or whatever you wanna call it, we may lose it to the museum circuit once and for all. And that’d be shame ‘cause dude, next to music, film is the great art form — taking other mediums as its raw material to alchemize new dimensions of sight, sound and mind heretofore unreachable. Sure, there’s a future where cinema lives on as a well-respected “niche” interest of sorts, like jazz or something. And that’ll probably be fine. But to maintain a pulse it’s gotta come from the people who really love it, you dig, and not just from the partitioned-off VIP section of this stagnant hyper-capitalist setup we got goin’ on.
Anyway, lotta these ideas I’ve gleaned from Joel Haver and the other creators out there making micro-budget DIY movies and putting them on the internet for free. Yes, by and large these are movies made “for the internet,” or more accurately for an audience on the internet. But that’s what makes them real movies, man. It’s 2023 “and I’m tired of pretending it’s not” feel me?
So here are may favorite internet indies of 2022 — all self-funded and self-distributed, taking up the John Cassavetes model of independent filmmaking for the digital age. Narrowed it down to 5 (kind of) for brevity’s sake but trust me when I say we’re lookin’ at the tip ‘o the iceberg here. If you like one or some or all ‘o these I reckon it’d do ya fine to dig around YouTube for more, see what cooks for ya. And please lemme know if you come across something you think I should check out or review!
Honorable Mention: Oscar’s
Documentarians capture, for the very first time, a yearly underground award ceremony in NYC.
Had to include an entry in Joel Haver's Make a Movie During the Oscars Challenge, in which he invited literally anyone to shoot their own feature film during the runtime of the Oscars broadcast. Lotta folks turned up and got up to some super creative shit, but the best of the bunch was Cody Clarke's improv ensemble piece about a mysterious underground award ceremony. The premise is particularly well conceived, and every performer crushes from start to finish. You watch folks take the film in completely unpredictable directions in real-time, yet it all feels like a real situation, all captured in illuminating black and white. Spellbinding stuff.
5. We Have to Leave Here Together
A couple spends a week away together.
Leveraging his approachable, sympathetic persona as both a creator and performer, Haver plays both central roles in this small, quiet, devastating film about a couple whose Airbnb weekend alone together becomes what several Letterboxd reviewers call the most authentic depiction of a breakup in ages. All of Haver's films are heartbreaking excavations of intimacy, our inability to fully connect, and the moments of beauty — tragic, comical, happy, sad, whatever — that burn brightly when we try.
4. Ramen Sucker Punch
When two criminal delivery drivers decide to start searching for the perfect bowl of ramen in the most unethical of ways, it will lead them down a path of a dark tragedy.
A Scharder-esque plight of the disenfranchised young white male kinda thing that works so well because of how it was made and released. Something you'd see Hollywood try and get totally wrong 'cause it'd be tone-deaf poverty cosplay or some shit. Both behind and in front of the camera, star/director Dan Lotz commands this hyper-realistic gig economy fable with total confidence. Ramen Sucker Punch feels like it could happen any minute, in any neighborhood, in any American city. Put another way, it feels like its title. Wish more movies felt like an honest-to-goodness ramen sucker punch ya know?
3. Two Little Ghosts
Once upon a time, there was a little ghost. This little ghost loved Halloween. The day felt special, like it was full of magic. No other day of the year felt as magical as Halloween. The day after Halloween made the little ghost very sad. The adults told this little ghost that it was time to become a human again. The little ghost did not want to be a human. The little ghost wanted to stay a ghost forever. “Fine,” said the little ghost’s parents. “But you’re going to have to take off that costume someday.” The little ghost’s parents had no idea how wrong they were…
The good folks at Doomed Productions are taking the "Halloween movie" to the next level. The second of a planned cycle of Halloween movies (not to be confused with horror movies, though there's inevitably some overlap there), Two Little Ghosts is a sad, sweet, infectious seasonal fairy tale about a pair of "ghosts" who fall in love at Halloween amidst the season's most wholesome and human vibrations — "spirits, magic, reconnecting with the dead. Kids feel the magic because they're in the street with the spirits." Writer, director, editor, and animator Jordan Ros throws a whole bunch of homegrown effects at the wall and every one of 'em sticks. As a result, Two Little Ghosts operates on a singular, undeniable emotional pitch — that sad, bitter-sweet moment when November 1st rolls around after a Halloween well spent, and the pain of living with memories of someone you lost through seasons where their spirit feels desperately close.
2. No Shark
In this darkly comedic and uniquely angsty journey, twelve vignettes chronicle a young woman’s inner monologue as she visits various NYC beaches in hopes of fulfilling her dream of being eaten by a shark.
No internet indie from last year was more successful or cohesive in execution than No Shark. Director Cody Clarke knows exactly what he wants out of every frame, every performance, no vagueries about it. And he's gained a sizeable following in Japan thanks to this existential shark movie with deceptively literary ambitions. Movies that feel like literature while maintaining a cinematic drive are rare gems, some of the most special films to exist. It's a difficult mood and sensibility to pull off. No Shark is like the ultimate "novella film," feeding your mind concise images and emotional sensations through the narration (the film's only soundtrack) while the image on screen compels, confuses, seduces, and envelops. The experience is so jarring because it's so new and so hypnotic and rewarding once you lock in. Helluva picture.
And it turns out it’s only the first in a series of existential shark movies planned by Clarke. The follow-up, Invisible Shark, is due out real soon. Can’t wait!
1. Watchanddie
Four friends pass the time by watching horror films together, but one day the horrors become a terrifying reality when they discover a mysterious website.
Remember the psychological terror of watching The Ring at home on VHS or DVD, then waiting for days for something spooky to happen? Watchanddie is like the 2022 version of that, evoking a Lovecraftian sense of dread around the very act of watching an underground horror movie online. A fully realized, early-Refn-esque Y2K Tumblr aesthetic grants uncanny relevance to this cyber-gothic tale of isolated Gen-Xers being hunted by a malevolent, supernatural entity from the early-2000s dark web. It's a grimy techno-pulp fable for today's terminally isolated, chronically online masses, and a melancholy invitation to find a way out. I'm the first to praise Top Gun: Maverick and Avatar: The Way of Water for revitalizing a type of Hollywood spectacle most of us thought was lost forever. But it's the boundary-pushing, boots-on-the-ground immediacy of Watchanddie that really gets me excited about the future of cinema.
If you liked the post, please hit the heart button below // It helps us reach more readers on Substack // Also, tell a film-loving friend to subscribe //
Follow me on Letterboxd and Twitter // Read more of my writing: whoisandyandersen.com