Wynonna Earp delightfully mixes uproarious laughter with uncontrollable sobbing 

Wynonna Earp airs Fridays at 9 p.m. E.T. on Space. Photo courtesy Bell Media

Wynonna Earp Season 3, Episode 7, “I Fall to Pieces.”

Wynonna Earp had us all craving Christmas. This week continues the spirit of giving with a Wynhaught-heavy pairing fans eagerly asked Santa (AKA showrunner Emily Andras) for. Season three continues the tradition of featuring Wynonna and Haught spending time together during the seventh episode and honestly, what more could an Earper ask for? Season one had the duo drinking their sorrows away under Nicole’s desk while season two had the iconic sequence where the pair travelled to a strip club to confront (what they believed to be) Wynonna’s Revhead baby daddy.

“I Fall to Pieces” starts off with a bang – in the “coitus” sense of the word – as Wynonna and Charlie Fire Services heat up Purgatory’s fire hall. Can I just say, it’s incredibly rude that these two interrupted Wayhaught campaigning for Nicole’s takeover as sheriff? I love and understand Wynonna’s adult-womanly needs but Sheriff Haught takes precedence over everything on Earth. Nedley shows the duo a secret compartment in his office that he chose to bury any cases with supernatural elements in them, rather than create a sex cave we all knew he definitely had. They find various knick-knacks, doodads and, after violently breaking numerous artifacts, Wynonna chalks up this encounter as Nedley’s attempts to get the two comfortable with working together.

Haught goes up against someone genuinely named Bunny Loblaw. With a name like that, she really should’ve avoided any position involving work of any kind. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt whenever we initially meet them, but Bunny takes all that and throws it out along with Calamity Jane. As the scene went on, it clicked for me that the city councillor was portrayed by none other than Canadian music legend Jann friggin’ Arden, who in just about the briefest of moments manages to reach Joffrey Baratheon/Lannister-levels of manipulation wickedness. As Haught and Wynonna argue in the kitchen about who is more qualified to be sheriff (moot point, we all know Sheriff C. Jane would keep everyone safer than any human possibly could), Bun Bun faints at the sight of a heavily-bearded man wandering outside the house. Thankfully, they utilized the patented Lloyd Christmas/Harry Dunne method of assisting those in need, which involves shoving pills into the victim’s mouth.

Wynonna Earp Season 3 Episode 7 – I Fall to Pieces. Photo courtesy Bell Media

We are then led on a delightful sequence of events following Wynhaught as they attempt to get the keys to Haught’s commandeered police vehicle. The “big city” cool frat cats who drunkenly invaded Purgatory managed to Grand Theft Auto their way into Haught’s stalled car, bringing it to a revenant biker gang bar (because that’s where everybody knows your name). It wouldn’t be a

Wynonna Earp episode if Wynonna wasn’t drinking in some capacity, so she offers up a drinking contest against the bikers, as opposed to a nice game of Golden Girls trivia to set the Pie Gamma Whatevers free and drive Bunny to the hospital.

I have to say, as someone who doesn’t drink and never saw Coyote Ugly (sorry Nicole), the whole spitting-your-shots-back-into-your-beer strategy is genius. As they waddle away handcuffed (and absolutely smashed, in Haught’s case), I had a brief realization that Haught drank every single one of those shots and kept them all down, unlike the lightweight biker Revhead. That’s some scarily impressive liver capabilities. After being rescued by the previously-seen heavily-bearded wandering man, a problem arises that is pure Wynonna Earp (takes deep breath). As it turns out, the man is married to a lady lawn gnome, who was destroyed when Wynhaught was rooting around Nedley’s secret compartment. This, of course, led him on a violent quest to find a new wife in either Nicole or Wynonna. However Waverly’s puzzle skills allowed her to piece back together his deceased wife, leading her to be revived and back in the arms of her beloved bearded beau. This is why I watch this show.

We weren’t given much in terms of Vamp Doc coming to terms with any newfound abilities he may have attained as a novice vampire in this episode, save for his hand burning itself whenever any ugly jewelry is placed upon it. The unlikely pairing of Doc/Mama spend the day together as Mama visits Ward’s grave and reveals Bobo told her Ward pushed Julian out of the Ghost River Triangle, where he has been missing ever since. Doc is rightfully taken aback when Mama reveals she has set him free, believing he could assist the Earps in the fight against Bulshar. Despite Doc’s objections, Mama ultimately decides to take a page out of her playbook and abandon her daughters in search of Julian, who she believes to be out there beyond the GRT.

  Surely, this decision will not come back to bite him in the moustache. 

Wynonna adorably threatens Bunny Loblaw with the prospect of demons hanging out on her front porch if she doesn’t back Haught for sheriff. That is true love right there. The final few moments of the episode made me curl into an uncontrollable bawling mess. We first gain some insight into Wynonna’s initial hesitancy to accept Nicole for fear that she’d break Waverly’s heart, and then we learn about Nicole’s jealously of Wynonna. As if their bonding wasn’t touching enough, it’s revealed that the person who saved a tiny Haught after the Bulshar massacre was a young Nedley?! As I mentioned in a previous recap, this season has had Nicole Haught backstory insights sprinkled throughout, and I adore all of them. Rather than giving us an exposition-heavy moment in just one episode, we can witness the development of this character as her journey progresses, which ultimately makes it all the more satisfying.

The episode ends with something I never like to see – Waverly in a state of unhappiness. Mama left behind a letter for each Earp sister and Wynonna’s letter basically lets the bat out of the bag. Wynonna learns Doc is a vampire and that Kate turned him. The two engage in a devastating back-and-forth argument that ultimately ends with a method I learned is stupidly serious in the vampire world thanks to my True Blood dedication years ago – Wynonna does not welcome John Henry Holliday into her home. In an episode filled with quips, gags and hilarity, the concluding moments grab onto your heart and refuse to let go even after the credits roll. Yet… another… day in Purgatory? Excuse me while I cry into my Timbits.

There are many remarkable characters in Wynonna Earp viewers would like to see go on adventures with each other, and Wynhaught is at the very top of that list. From Haught claiming Wynonna is not qualified enough to run a Chipotle (“Guac-A-Cuse me?”) to Wynonna interpreting Haught’s tactical hand signals as dick motions, Melanie Scrofano and Kat Barrell work brilliantly off one another. Besides the obvious hilarity these two bring together (

: “…okay.”), Bunny Loblaw also had some hysterical moments I did not see coming. I had to pause and rewind multiple times her screaming at the top of her lungs – “YOU ARE SOME KIND OF MORON, HAUGHT!”

I would now like to turn your attention to my 3 Favourite W’s for this episode of Wynonna Earp. These consist of favourite Wynonna Insult, Wayhaught Moment and Waverly Expression – the three pillars of any Wynonna Earp episode.

Wynonna Insult: “You want a wife but you need a mint.”

Wayhaught Moment: Wayhaught was every viewer watching when Wynonna claimed her and Doc were “never a thing.”

Wynonna Earp Season 3 Episode 7 – I Fall to Pieces. Photo courtesy Bell Media

What did you think of “I Fall to Pieces”? Let us know in the comments below.

TIFF interview: ‘Freaks’ directors Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein

TIFF interview: Les Salopes, or the Naturally Wanton Pleasure of Skin

Horror materializes in unconventional ways in Things Fall Apart

Things Fall Apart, the first feature from director/writer Hussein Juma, plays June 2 at the Globe Cinema in Calgary. Photo courtesy Hussein Juma

Those familiar with Hussein Juma, director and writer of

, know that it’s somewhat fruitless to attempt to fully summarize his work. That’s largely by design – Juma himself says he enjoys injecting ambiguity into his projects.

But more than that, what’s exciting about Juma as a director is his ability to create a sense of atmospheric dread based heavily on context and character and not cliché. So horror fans on the hunt for films that are likely to surprise should take note of what Juma says about his first feature,

“If you like arthouse cinema, things that are going to challenge you and even scare you a little too, I think this film would be for you,” Juma says. “If you’re interested in new ways to tell stories, in indie cinema and the way it can reframe things and put them in different contexts, I think there’s a lot to think about with this film.”

That unique approach to story was evident throughout Juma’s 12-episode web series

, a surreal horror that centres around a missing daughter, a forest and many mysterious masks. Though

helped prepare him, given the fact that the runtime of that web series evens out to be around the length of a feature.

lets audiences act as a sort of fly on the wall as tensions and emotions emerge.

“Things progressively get more tense between the characters. I think there’s a good balance — there are those moments where you’re going to feel uncomfortable, there are moments where you’re going to be scared, there are moments where you’re going to feel like, ‘What the hell is going on right now?’” Juma says.

Furthering his desire to tell a story in a fresh way, Juma says he employed improvised dialogue throughout

, making up 80 per cent of the dialogue. Though actors were provided with full scripts, dialogue was written in beats that guided where conversations would go.

“When we finally selected our actors, we extensively rehearsed it multiple times. That was a really cool process,” Juma says. “I had a bare-bones, skeleton idea of where I wanted each conversation to go, but these actors got so into it and took it to interesting places. (Many times) I was like, ‘Oh yeah, that’s great. We have to keep that.’”

Through using improvised dialogue, Juma says he was able to capture the essence of a dinner party, complete with moments of levity, tension and awkwardness. Photo courtesy Hussein Juma

The cast, which includes Chengis Javeri (one of the leads in

), Bobbi Goddard, Gina Lorene and more, was already familiar to Juma, giving him confidence that they would be able to pull off the improvised dialogue. Juma says surrounding himself with smart, funny people led to a number of happy accidents that made their way into the finished product.

Other times, Juma says he would play off what he knew about the actors themselves.

“If I could see even a sliver of tension between them in the real world or a sliver of something in a look that I see, I can kind of harness that in the film,” he says. “I think that worked really well in terms of when I wanted to play someone against another person. Because I worked with them before, I knew things I could whisper in their ear before a take to throw them off.”

Ultimately, Juma says he wanted to make a film that he would want to see himself. Based on his track record, it’s likely that horror fans looking for a surprising, experimental feature with strong character work will find it in

Things Fall Apart plays June 2 at 2 p.m. at the Globe Cinema in Calgary. For more information, click here.

Next up on The Mutt: The story behind Uwe Boll, the so-called “worst filmmaker” ever

CUFF 2019: Director Rob Grant on the tension (and dark comedy) of HARPOON

From director Rob Grant (Mon Ami, Fake Blood), Harpoon will make its Canadian premiere at the Calgary Underground Film Festival April 28. Photo courtesy CUFF

Adrift on the seas on a luxury yacht, three friends find themselves stranded without food or supplies and quickly realize their survival is less than assured. An official selection at International Film Festival Rotterdam 2019, Harpoon will make its Canadian premiere at the Calgary Underground Film Festival (CUFF) April 28. 

The Mutt spoke with director Rob Grant prior to the film’s screening at CUFF. This interview has been edited and condensed for length.

ROB GRANT: I had a great relationship with my producers (Knuckleball director Michael Peterson and Kurtis Harder) from a film called 

I pitched Mr. Peterson on this idea that was a mix between Polanski’s

 characters on the boat. I grew up in Vancouver, and the original idea was, “Well, I spent a lot of time on a boat, we could go take a boat out to the ocean and try to isolate ourselves out there.” Once a budget came into play and the idea grew, suddenly we were shooting the interiors of the boat in a set in the middle of freezing winter in Calgary, and shooting the exteriors on a boat in tropical Belize down south.

TM: Was it difficult for you to balance those comedic elements and still find a way to ratchet up the tension?

RG: It was very difficult, and there were a lot of discussions about that. When you have to give the elevator pitch, you have to say: “This is the genre and this is what it means.” But I subscribe to the logic that in life you can feel in one moment that you’re in a love story and the next minute in a horror movie, and that’s the way real life actually works. But it seems a little more rigid in movies. We were aware of potentially disrupting viewers’ experiences of watching the movie. (We thought) a movie could, or should, be multiple things at once. We’re willing to accept that there’s going to be some audience members that are going to reject that as a movie experience, but we wanted to try it.

Harpoon director Rob Grant said premiering the film at International Film Festival Rotterdam 2019 was a very validating experience. Photo courtesy CUFF

TM: Can you tell me more about those influences you mentioned? I’m curious about how you mixed something like 

came up specifically because as much as we all find the 

characters enduring, they’re very much in it for themselves. They’re worried about their own outcomes. So I tried to use a lot of that. As much as these people like to say they’re looking out for each other, the second it becomes a survival story they’re all kind of in it for themselves. Paul Thomas Anderson’s 

was another one, not only for mixing drama and humour, but definitely because the narration was less focused. It sets up what’s going to happen without speaking to much on the nose about what you’re about to see.

TM: I understand there’s some great gore and effects in

. What was your approach to that, and what effect do you think that has? 

RG: I’ve explored the effects of violence in cinema with 

and this was an extension of that. The entire movie, these people speak very casually and aloof about the things that potentially will need to be done without actually considering what that entails until suddenly when it happens. I felt like it would be a good idea to make sure that was extremely violent and horrible, not only because we’ve been teasing up to this moment, but I do believe there’s a certain element that people do not consider the actual realities of having to do something like that. So it’s very shocking, very brutal, it’s like, “ha ha ha this was all funny to discuss” and now that it’s happened it sucks the wind out of you. That was a very intentional decision.

does in a unique way when compared to other similar films? What do you hope the audience walks away with?

RG: I hope when people leave the cinema that it wasn’t the movie they were expecting, that it was a little bit of a different take. I do think it’ll challenge them depending what their expectations are. I just hope they’re expecting something interesting in the genre, and that they’re along for the ride.

Harpoon makes its Canadian premiere at the Calgary Underground Film Festival April 28. For tickets, click here. 

Click here to read our roundup of 9 Canadian films playing at CUFF 2019.

CUFF 2019: The story behind Uwe Boll, the so-called “worst filmmaker” ever

F*** You All: The Uwe Boll Story dives into the background of the notorious filmmaker, featuring a number of interviews with colleagues, critics and with Boll himself. Photo courtesy CUFF

Director of the critically-maligned video game adaptations Alone in the Dark, House of the Dead and BloodRayne, Uwe Boll has long held a unfavourable reputation in the film industry not only due to the perceived quality of his films, but also due to his antagonistic response to his online “haters.” 

But a new documentary, F*** You All: The Uwe Boll Story, seeks to better understand the firebrand filmmaker, diving into Boll’s past through a series of interviews with colleagues, critics and Boll himself. 

The Mutt spoke with F*** You All: The Uwe Boll Story Vancouver-based director Sean Patrick Shaul prior to the film’s Alberta premiere at the Calgary Underground Film Festival April 27. This interview has been edited and condensed for length.

THE MUTT: How did you first become acquainted with Uwe Boll?

I worked as a crew member with him. Seeing him work was so fascinating. The way he directed was like no one I had ever seen before. He was such an interesting guy. That was almost 10 years ago and I ended up working on a TV show that was shooting in his restaurant. That was how I came across the idea for the documentary. The idea was to look at someone who is widely known as the world’s worst director. It was more asking, “Why was he considered that? How did he get that title, and whether or not he was.”

TM: As his persona on the internet developed, did that mesh with what you knew of him? Did you feel he was being portrayed in a way that was inaccurate?

SPS: I had seen some of his movies and I understood the reputation he had. He also fuelled that himself through the internet, engaging with all of these trolls and these critics. He takes it head on, which is fun to watch. But I had no idea what he would say when I pitched the documentary to him. Within five minutes, I realized we had a lot in common. He was excited about the documentary, excited to have that side told of it.

Vancouver-based director Sean Patrick Shaul first encountered Uwe Boll on the set of the 2013 action thriller Assault on Wall Street. Photo courtesy CUFF

TM: How does Boll feel about being referred to as the “world’s worst director”?

SPS: He thinks it’s very unfair, which I guess I would agree with. Art is subjective, so it’s hard to say whether something is good or bad. But I think he’s also aware of the type of movies he was making. He didn’t think he was making

. He knew these were video game adaptations movies, so his expectations were low with those. But he has made more personal films (since then), but he already had this black cloud following him around. It stalled his career in that way. I thought that was really interesting – he made 32 movies, but by his fifth movie, people had already written him off.

TM: Why do you think Boll feels the need to respond to his trolls and his critics online?

SPS: I think he’s a very proud guy. He’s aware of his accomplishments and I don’t think he can let a comment like that go. If someone has the motivation to go after him online, he has the equivalent motivation to fire back at them. He hasn’t really calmed down on that too much. I think he’s currently banned from Twitter for going after trolls. It’s kind of tongue-in-cheek for him when he goes after these people. He enjoys it, he likes engaging with them. It became part of his personality. As much as it hurt his career, it also helped his career in a way.

TM: In spending time with Boll, what surprised you about him as you got to know him better?

SPS: Before, I thought he was kind of an asshole, from his online persona, I thought he was just kind of a jerk. Through meeting him, I realized he’s a super sweet guy, he’s a really, really genuinely nice guy. He cares about films, he’s a real film guy. He knows all of the classics, he’s seen all these foreign films – he’s a real cinephile. But there’s something about him not being able to pull that off. All his favourite movies are the classics, but for some reason he can’t make those films himself. He was kind of handcuffed by all these tax loopholes and funding schedules, that he would have to pump these films out in a certain timeframe to get the tax credit. There’s a lot of reasons his earlier films turned out the way they did. They didn’t turn out the way he envisioned.

TM: Given that he knew the documentary wasn’t going to be all positive, why did Boll want to participate?

SPS: I think he just wanted someone who was looking at the larger picture instead of comparing him to a Tommy Wiseau or a Ed Wood. He wanted to explain himself a bit. The articles and the small kinds of podcast interviews don’t really give him enough time to explain himself, or they ask the same five questions. Almost every headline is “world’s worst director” – I think he wanted to look at something deeper. But he wasn’t shying away from that title. I told him early on in production that we’d be definitely looking at that angle and talking about it. He was more than happy to look at it. Most people would want this buried, but he looked at it head on. “I have that title, but let’s look at why.”

F*** You All: The Uwe Boll story plays April 27 at the Calgary Underground Film Festival. For tickets, click here.