During the summer of 2005, Travis Irvine and his comedy posse, known as “The Wrong Man Comedy Group,” successfully shot a one-hour-and-15-minute comedy/horror/musical on a shoe-string budget called “Coons! Night of the Bandits of the Night.”
“Coons!” features a number of odd-ball, stereotypical college kids attempting to party, drink and have sex while visiting a local campground during their summer vacation. Unfortunately for these party-hungry college students, their campground is infested with ravenous, blood-thirsty raccoons.
Like many young filmmakers, Irvine’s characters are borrowed from previously successful movies. Character traits from popular movies like “American Pie” and “Super Troopers” are common. There is even a direct quote from “Jurassic Park” in a scene.
Because the film was on a rigid $5,000 dollar budget, most of Irvine’s crew was forced to play multiple characters. The Wrong Man Comedy Group proved to be up to the challenge of portraying a group of wild, back-country locals as diverse as a gun-and-liquor-store owner, a Bible-carrying preacher, a fanatical liberal hippie, an ultra-dense fraternity guys, an off-the-wall doctor and a power-crazy mayor. The actors were able to pull off such a feat by disguising their faces with unmistakably fake mustaches, gigantic sideburns and wacky wigs.
The film’s special effects are, surprisingly, one the film’s strongest assets. Set in the woods of a campground, the movie does not call for alien invasions or elaborate car-chase scenes.
“Coons!” has impressive, close-to-realistic gun fire, electronic taser flow and creepy, glowing animal eyes in dark, wooded backgrounds. Along with the special effects, the original music and sound effects featured in “Coons!” were extraordinary, considering the funding. Irvine and his crew recreated sounds similar to flesh being torn from bones, two campers playing in the woods, and voraciously evil raccoon chatter.
The movie was overzealous in its use of human feces as a source of comedy. A portion of the story line revolves around the raccoon’s use of human feces found in the forest as a weapon, but then the film oversteps the audience’s capacity for poop by adding countless farting and pooping scenes involving the college campers. Even the most sophomoric of frat guys could get tired of the movie’s use of fart and pooping sounds as a supply of comedy.
Irvine also has a number of “podunk racism” jokes, which, in retrospect, were unnecessary and added a strange, awkward feeling to the movie. “Coons!” featured easy jokes pertaining to black, Middle Eastern and gay stereotypes that simply highlighted the fact the movie was made by twentysomethings.
It is a terrific accomplishment that Irvine was able to take his “Coons!” brainchild from an inside jokes with his friends and a love for the comedy/horror/musical genre to the big screen, at Columbus’ own Drexel Theater in the Gateway complex.
Perhaps Irvine and his Wrong Man Comedy Group will find enough success with “Coons!” that someday the city of Columbus can brag that it supported Irvine and his gang back when they were making movies about killer raccoons and the sexually frustrated, overzealous college kids they love to eat.
