"Bad Haircut" is an explosion of bent genres and expectations
Graphic by Zoe Wren Arntsen, Illustrator
“Bad Haircut” was one of the fourteen centerpiece films highlighted, among over 300 films screened, over the seven days of the Newport Beach Film Festival.
“Bad Haircut” is a dark comedy thriller about Billy (Spencer Harrison Levin), an insecure college student whose friends convince him to get a haircut at a new barbershop to boost his confidence. What they don’t know is that the barber, Mick (Frankie Ray), is a psychopath.
While the poster made “Bad Haircut” look like a horror movie the film defies genre expectations and makes the audience care about every character, including the barber.
Kyle Misak, the Michigan-based director of the film, said that the idea came to fruition because of an experience he had with a barber in college.
“He was this really eccentric, bizarre personality that was just larger than life, and I always thought of him as kind of a character, and so he was a catalyst and the jumping off point for writing a movie around him, just because I felt like there was such a dynamic character in this guy and that he would be somebody that would stand out and would be worth sort of writing a story around,” said Misak.
Frankie Ray, who plays this eccentric barber and kidnapper, said that getting into character was emotionally taxing.
“I've played a lot of psychos,” said Ray. “As I started building this backstory on this guy and fleshing him out, I ran into myself. And I realized that I had lived my whole life the same way, looking for love and trying to validate that.”
The film makes it clear early on that there is a missing college student named Sam in the area that Mick the barber may or may not be connected to. Sam is played by Nora Freetly in her feature acting debut.
“This was the first film that I've ever been in. So there was a lot of added pressure on that. But I was like, you know what? There's so many amazing people that have worked so hard and that I'm so grateful for for giving me and entrusting me with this opportunity,” said Freetly.
The privately funded indie film had its fair share of stunts, but producer Jon Petro said it was the little things that might go unnoticed that made the process the most difficult at times.
“As a producer, that's just a lot of putting out fires, a lot of relationships. There's lots of people involved. We had hundreds of people on set sometimes, especially the extras,” said Petro. “And we had 50 to 100 people on set. And it's (about) the most basic things like keeping people alive.”
The film ended with an ice cream truck being driven off a cliff and exploding, and Petro said that came with its fair share of problems.
“The pyrotechnic people misfired, mistriggered it. We had to blow it up a second time (but) didn't have another truck, (so we) had to hire a diving team to pull the truck out from 160 feet of water, tow it to the top of the cliff, re-weld the driving shaft, and throw it off again and re-rig all the explosions,” said Petro.
This was one of the many issues that came up on set, but in the end, the film came together and played to an enthusiastic audience at its sold-out premiere.
“The most rewarding part is watching the movie with an audience in a theater,” said Misak. “And so getting to do that with our cast and our crew and these people that have never seen it and watched them react is really rewarding.”