Oscilloscope Laboratories Tabs Mar. 21 For The Home Entertainment Debut Of Writer/Director Maxwell McCabe-Lokos’ Stanleyville

Oscilloscope Laboratories announced this past week that writer/director Maxwell McCabe-Lokos’ deeply disturbing dark comedy, Stanleyville, will be heading to the home entertainment packaged media marketplace on Mar. 21 as both Blu-ray and DVD production selections.

Odd.   Strange.   Bizarre.   Just a few of words that easily attach themselves to McCabe-Lokos’ Stanleyville.  

It premiered at Canada’s Fantasia International Film Festival in August of 2021 and then had an ever-so-brief arthouse run in April of last year … and now Stanleyville makes the transition to the home entertainment marketplace virtually new-to-all.

For the record, the ARR works out 333 days.

Wham!   A fairly large bird crashes into the window at the office building where Maria Barbizan works (played by Susanne Wuest — Man from Beirut, Goodnight Mommy, Iceman, We Might as Well be Dead) and that’s about all we will ever know about her career.   She stops home and we meet her husband and daughter and that’s it for them too … Maria checks out.

It was probably a bit of time in the making, but McCabe-Lokos doesn’t clutter his film with Maria’s backstory, but rather moves quickly to the “chance” meeting with Homunculus (Julian Richings — Anything for Jackson, Spare Parts, The Space Between), who claims to be the host of a very special competition that has as its grand prize a new car.   She says yes.

Before you can say Stan-ley-ville, Maria finds herself locked away with four other contestants — Andrew (Christian Serritiello — Flesh City, Catalina), Felicie (Cara Ricketts — Home Sweet Home Alone, Something Other than Now), Manny (Adam Brown — as Ori in The Hobbit trilogy) and Bofill (played by stuntman George Tchortov) — three of which (not saying who) appear to be lunatics from a
nut house — throw in Homunculus and that makes four.   Not Michael Myers crazy, but more along the lines of Philippe de Broca’s eccentric crazies that populated King of Hearts.

Has Maria wandered into an elaborate Monty Python skit?   It has the feel of their film And Now for Something Completely Different and its “Upper Class Twit of the Year" contest … indeed, Maria’s name is on a big green chalk scoreboard with the all of the contestants listed and tasks numbered one through eight on it.  A real contest, with a scoreboard … and a prize.

Maybe, unbeknownst to either the audience or
Maria, she’s been committed to a psych ward, Homunculus is the therapist and she’s in a group session.   It’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and she’s McMurphy.

It doesn’t matter, real or not-real, the contest begins.  Blow up and pop as many balloons as you can is one minute.  Really?   Maria, sadly, fails … zero points for her.   Only seven rounds left.

We could go through Stanleyville round-by-round, but what would be the fun — or terror — in that.   

There is this much we can say.   Not all of the contestants will survive the game, not that there’s a maniac in the group, but like the players in Monty Python’s “Upper Class Twit of the Year" contest, stupid-is as stupid-does.

Stanleyville is out there … way out there.

Bonus features include commentary by filmmaker Maxwell McCabe-Lokos, who is joined by Matthew Rankin, plus there are two McCabe-Lokos short films — Ape Sodom and Midnight Confession.