Ink Blotting - The Muffin Man

Posted on Wednesday, August 02, 2006 at 12:00 AM

The Muffin Man

Blaine Wasylkiw, in his own words, made, shot and cut The Muffin Man; a dark and grim tale of the employees of Gonuts Donuts and the attack upon them by a brutal, demonic, muffin-headed serial killer one night in November. Starring little known talent in Calgary, but nevertheless quality talent, The Muffin Man is not just the soon-to-be sleeper hit for Calgary film goers, it's an in-a-coma hit.

Filmed over 13 days and taking only several months to edit The Muffin Man debuted at the Telus Science Centre on August the first, 2006. A special day. A day that also happened to be my 2 year wedding anniversary. And what better way to acknowledge the love I have for my wife, now of two years, than to take her to the free showing of what, in Lloyd Kaufman's words, is sure to be the rising cult hit of the year. And this reviewer would definitely agree. At just over 40 minutes long we, the audience were subjected to a faulty dvd machine, the slightly humorous attempts by two of the leads to entertain while the movie skipped, hopped and cut itself to pieces in the faulty machine. But the theatre was full of people who hadn't paid to see the movie, so a bit of their time and the strong positive energy about the film made even the glitches and malfunctions an appealing part of the experience.

The Muffin Man itself had huge helpings of originality. Death scenes were especially well done considering the limited $1100 budget. I won't go into the gory details of the death of most of the staff and those around them, but you can rest assured and satiated that every death is in some way baking related. Chris Ippolito in the role of Chad brought a wry wit and exceptional timing to Anders J. Svensson's well honed script. Allison Lynch was priceless in her role and brought to the film a sarcastic and expression-filled bored Gonuts Donuts employee. I have heard tell her death scene was particularly difficult and dangerous as a stunt. The surprise star, in this humble reviewer's opinion, was the Gonuts Donuts Manager played by Baljeet Balagun who was understated and underused by the director and writer. Though his death scene was the flat-out funniest the movie had.

The real reason to watch the movie though, is to see The Muffin Man himself. Played by James Ireland, The Muffin Man sports a 3 foot tall muffin with glowing red eyes of demonic doom. James Ireland is best known for his over-internet voice acting as well as his love of muffins. He brings a sense of demonic power to The Muffin Man and got his inspiration for the role from the fact that "the lion sleeps tonight." You can hear James go on at length about the lion he derived his characterization from in the extras section in a hidden part of the menu.

Though you may not have the opportunity to see The Muffin Man on the big screen in the near or even almost-near future, there is hope for enjoyment to be had. The Muffin Man is already on dvd format and can be purchased at the strawberry jam-filled price of $10 at www.themuffinmanmovie.com. I also implore Kara Green to present another film to a baited-breath Calgary next year .

5 muffins out of 4 stars, and a donut.

Kyle Gould is a University of Calgary Graduate in English devoutly trying to make the 25,000 dollar piece of parchment not just a glorified ink blot. Currently it would serve better as a Rorschach test. Feel free to throw some ink his way at wkkgould@hotmail.com.