Death Quest Of The Ju-Ju Cults
1976, 16mm, black/white, sound, 30min.
Digitally Restored, 2019
This movie was based on a comic book story I wrote but was never published, so I decided to tell it in a black and white film. I wanted to do it in color because it involved actors as cave people, had dense jungles as its setting, and a raging volcano in full eruption. My budget couldn't buy color film, so I was determined to give this movie a lushness in texture that didn't need color to be effectively pictorial.
Enter a shimmering forest and encounter the Pot Boiling turbulence of pre-history tribes in conflict. See sacrificial virgins, volcanoes, knife fights, spaceships... It's all in this black and white saga of pure escapement photographed amid upper New York's muddy river region one fine summer day back when the world was young in 1976. – Mike Kuchar
Restoration by the Kuchar Brothers Trust, Anthology Film Archives, and Francois Ghebaly Gallery
Digital Remastering by FotoKem