Oh, the horrors of low-budget filmmaking. When you’re not dealing with time and budgetary constraints, you’ve got to contend with surly union workers, primadonna cast members, the desperate cat-and-mouse game of finding distribution... Sometimes, it’s all you can do not to make a deal with the Devil.

So can you blame poor Sam Epstein, with his world crashing down around his ears, if he turned to a little black magic?

Sam (hilariously played by Jeremy Peter Johnson) is introduced to us being dragged out of his apartment in cuffs by New York City’s finest and charged with quadruple homicide. Inside, the police found not only the corpses, but several artifacts related to the occult, including the tome "Magic for Morons." After a quick explanation of the case, we’re thrown right into documentary footage of the fall of Sam Epstein on the set of his film "Act Like a Man." Sam, clad in quite the ridiculous "director‘s" get-up (consisting of beret, ascot, sunglasses, and leather jacket), tells us all about his life being just like those old Moviola newsreels (with a spot-on parody to back up his claims), before launching into the heartache of watching the creation of his baby spiral out of his control. Production is constantly being hampered by his two roommates Chip (the Cheshire Cat-esque high-rolling wannabe filmmaker on the verge of signing a multipicture deal with a major distributor), and Trevor (a man committed more to sexual, chemical, and alcoholic excesses than his job as an OR assistant), whose nonstop partying and industry hobnobbing are always in the way of Sam’s progress, along with a lazy, drug-addicted production crew who’d rather have a needle in their arm than a boom mic over their heads. The one bright spot in Sam’s production is the lovely, talented Janus (whose name spelling offers up some less-than-subtle foreshadowing) who he is madly in love with, despite Chip’s constant attempts to bed her. Unfortunately, even that is torn from his grasp, so he turns to the rituals of satanic entourage in order to force fortune back into his mitts. However, you can’t open Pandora’s Box and close it again so easily...

The first thing that impressed me about The Devil’s Filmmaker: Bohica is how well all of the jokes work. Satire is a tough wire to walk, and to see writer/director Andrew Montlack make his debut with a minimum of his gags falling flat is quite a feat. Sure, he occasionally dips his toe into the gross-out end of the pool for a "cheap" laugh, but other sight gags, well-choreographed background responses, and the occasional serious moment offset these bits to make a beautifully sardonic stew. Ever seen a doctor smoking a joint he’s just removed from a patient‘s chest? You will. Ever seen surgeons discuss their golf handicap while their overtired, drug-addled assistant botches an open-heart operation? You will. Ever laugh at a suicide note (you sick bastard)? You will!

Backing up all of this silliness is some genuinely solid acting on the part of the entire cast. Despite a bit of overacting and mugging for the camera (this is a comedy, after all), everyone turns in a top-notch performance. When Sam tells Janus that he no longer wants to see her again in order to make her have an appropriate reaction to an on-camera scuffle, my eyebrows practically raised off my forehead. It makes the mockumentary all the more believable, despite the severely over-the-top subject matter.

Being a mockumentary about a low-budget film shot on video, I was also impressed with the A/V quality of TDF. Picture quality was clean with fairly solid colors and even blacks and whites. Montlack and his cinematographer Robert C. Banks manage to not fall prey to video’s shortcomings through proper lighting, while still giving the movie the "spontaneous" feel that it needs to work. Audio was similarly clear, with everyone’s dialogue spouting off without a hitch. The only area that I would’ve liked to see a little more effort thrown in was in the extras. We’re given a few trailers for other Alpha New Cinema releases, and that’s it. I would’ve loved to have seen some outtakes, and you can’t expect me to believe that the actors didn’t flub some of their ridiculous lines at least once. However, I can certainly understand the exclusion of audio commentary, as the cinematic style is fairly nonexistent (being shot in documentary style), and the movie itself needs little to no explanation. Plus, commentary on a low-budget film that’s already a commentary on low-budget film seems quite redundant.

Being an Alpha Video release, The Devil’s Filmmaker: Bohica comes with a nice, low $6.98 MSRP. You can probably find it for at least a dollar less at certain retail outlets. Only six bucks or so for the wittiest satire of independent filmmaking since Troma’s Terror Firmer (review here) is a more than fair price to pay.