Raiders!: The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made
Dir: Jeremy Coon, Tim Skousen
2015
****
Raiders!: The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made is the stuff of nerd legend. In 1982, a twelve year old Eric Zala became utterly obsessed after watching Steven Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark in his local cinema. After seeing a fellow school mate Chris Strompolos reading an Indiana Jones comic one lunch break, he approached him and started talking about the film. After discussing their shared enthusiasm for the film, they both decided to borrow their parents video camera and make a shot for shot copy of the now classic movie. It took them seven years and the entirety of their teens. They approached the school geek Jayson Lamb about special effects and the three of them set to work. They begged, borrowed and stole everything they needed for their film, as well as recruit nearly every kid in their neighbourhood. They jumped out of moving cars and set each other on fire and their parents had absolutely no idea what they were up to. They spent every summer holiday of their teens working on the movie, the obsession never once taking second place to anything else in their lives. It is, rather ironically, just like something you’d expect from a feel-good Steven Spielberg movie. The boys – now in their early 50s – reflect that it was their parents busy lifestyles and subsequent divorces that pushed them into the project, to take their minds off their real lives. By 1989 the boys had grown up. They were going to collage, chasing girls and doing all the other things 19 year olds do. The project was essentially finished and they had also had enough. They screened it at a local cinema for their friends and were interviewed on local television but after 1989 they lost contact and thought nothing more of the film. A couple of decades later Eli Roth, who had obtained a rare copy of the film at film school, gave his copy to Harry Knowles of Ain’t It Cool News’ fame, hoping that he would show it at 2002’s Butt-Numb-a-Thon film festival. Knowles loved it and decided to show it just before the premiere of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. The film was meant to fill a gap in the schedule but it overran and was cut short to show the big feature. Suddenly the crowd starting booing, they had paid to see The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers first but now they wanted to see Raiders!. A cult phenomenon began. Word got out and Roth tracked down the boys and got the band together again for a packed out screening in 2003. Since then, the boys – some of whom had gone through tough times – had rekindled friendships and made several appearances talking about the film. They even got to meet Steven Spielberg who invited them to his home to tell him how much he loved their film. However, the boys never did finish the film. The finished article was almost perfect frame for frame, especially as most was filmed from memory as the VHS of the film wasn’t released until a good couple of years since they saw it in the cinema. The stunts they performed were amazing given what little they had to work with but even so they achieved so much – apart from the infamous fight scene next to the flying wing aircraft that sees the gruesome demise of a henchman after a lengthy fist fight with Indy. The plane then blows up. The missing scene started to bother the boys, Zala in particular, so they hatched a plan that would never been possible in 1982 or 1989. They crowd-funded the project that would see them build the model of a plane, hire a top director and explode their prop, thus completing the film. People paid but there was one problem. These guys aren’t really film makers. However, their story, told while they set to complete the final scene, is golden. What happened to the boys after the film is almost as amazing than the film itself. The new scene doesn’t disappoint either, when an unexpected event gives the documentary a climactic finale. It is as if the Goonies were real and this is the documentary of their story. It’s the best of a 1980s Spielberg movie and a feel-good documentary rolled into one. It will appeal to so many, whether you’re an Indy fan, documentary nut or interested in film making – this is the film for you.