Not 100:The Cornfield Flare

As I go through my list proper, I'll continue to mention scenes that didn't make the list. A vast majority of these will be from movies that I watched after I solidified the list. A couple will just be scenes that are interesting, but not necessarily 'Top 100' worthy.

Today's moment is one of those moments.

In 1998, my two cousins, my brother, and I got together with a video camera and a vision - beat boredom by making a movie. We decided that the movie would be about a resort owner who was also a serial killer. We all took turns writing, directing, shooting, and acting. All was done on the fly - we'd get done shooting a scene then plan what to do with the next scene. The final product was terrible. We had absolutely no idea what we were doing. Out the fifteen or so scenes in the final product, there were maybe two times where we decided that a scene was so incredibly awful as to require a second take. We could've probably used more.

The 'best' scene was set by our family's barn. Everybody was getting bored of the whole process by then, so it was agreed that an extended (and extremely nonsensical) shootout scene was needed. We had toy guns, but we decided that wasn't good enough, so for special effects, we put bottle rockets into the barrels and aimed them at each other. Suddenly, our murder mystery was interrupted by five minutes of continuous people shooting bottle rockets and throwing smoke bombs at each other. We meant it in at least semi-earnest, but the entire thing plays out hilariously. There one point where my brother tries to throw a lit smoke bomb into an opening in the hayloft window while saying something badass. He fails three times, before looking directly at the camera with a defeated glance. There's even a moment where I take footage of my cousin and brother lighting one of the bottle rockets with them trying to shoo me off. The entire scene is one big, extended special effects failure. It's awesome.

Of course, we showed our families our wonderful movie, they laughed constantly, but noted that it was probably not a great idea to be shooting bottle rockets and lit smoke bombs into a barn filled with hay.

Sadly, the only copy of The Cornfield Flare is on VHS, and my brother has not as of yet delivered on his promise to put the whole 18 minute affair on DVD and YouTube, so you'll just have to take my word for it.