DFA Staff Pick: Keep Watching the Skies

This month’s staff pick is Keep Watching the Skies by Roy and Noel Spence. The brothers’ take on the 1950s American horror film brings their unique style to this 1975 winner of the World Amateur Film of the Year prize.

The 1950s were a time of paranoia and fear in the Western hemisphere. If it wasn’t the threat of mutually-assured destruction as the political juggernauts of the USA and the USSR glared at each other from opposite sides of the globe, it was a fear of non-conformity – of sticking out or just being ‘different’. America’s ‘Dream Factory’ film industry churned out countless films featuring aliens – benevolent and aggressive – giant mutated critters, colossal women and mad scientists thumbing their nose at nature. What’s more, these events often transpired in that most sacred of conservative American cradles, the small town. All of it became part of American myth-making and how the nation considered itself, how ‘fear’, especially of the unknown, shaped much of the American consciousness in the twentieth century. These themes lingered well beyond the decade, influencing countless artists, including the iconic, and already sorely missed, filmmaker David Lynch. Lynch’s fascination with the veneer of small-town Americana concealing darker forces owes much to the legacy of 1950s cinema, a connection echoed in the Spence Brothers’ tribute.

But what were two young filmmakers from Comber, Co. Down, supposed to make of all this? Working on a tiny budget, the Spence Brothers show their love for 1950s American horror films with great bravura. Pompadours shoot skyward; rock n’ roll rattles on the soundtrack; and teenage girls twist, boogie woogie and jive before making out with their jock boyfriends on the dance floor, as one lonely heart watches proceedings, sipping from a Coke bottle. All of them are blissfully unaware as a vast blob of space goop, unleashed from a jettisoned canister from a UFO, slouches towards them, bursting through a wall plastered with pictures of teen idols…and Bing Crosby. The atmosphere is more than a recreation; it feels authentic. Roy and Noel Spence’s love of the genre creates a short that’s beyond pastiche or parody. It’s a sincere tribute to the cinema that shaped them and how they see the world and is a joyous reminder of how the fears and fantasies of 1950s cinema continue to inspire.

Keep an eye out for some fun forced perspective shots, including the blob devouring a toy car, a knowing wink to viewers to embrace the whimsy, as well as several match cuts that reveal a deep and sophisticated cinematic filmmaking knowledge. So, grab your bottle of Coca Cola, your best leather jacket, your aviator sunglasses, and get ready to keep watching the skies!

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