Dead Northern 2024 Festival Review – Mad Props (Sunday Surprise screening)

Our Surprise Sunday feature is revealed below!

To be able to hold Freddy Krueger’s bladed glove, to sit and admire the luminescent glow of a real Lightsaber from the Star Wars universe in person, to be in reaching distance of the camera that shot the Alfred Hitchcock classic Vertigo (1958) is a dream of many cinephiles.

The fascination we hold dear towards movie memorabilia can blossom from a range of factors, whether it is because we still have a personal attachment to a beloved film from our childhood, or maybe it’s at the hands of a deep connection to a comfort film that we have watched time and time again.

Costumes, filming equipment, masks, and props, alongside an array of every niche object one could fathom, from the likes of genre essentials and cinematic universes, are not just meaningless articles that share a tie to media. In fact, it’s quite the contrary. As director and writer Juan Pablo Reinoso attests to throughout the documentary ‘Mad Props’, these pieces from the silver screen are inextricably tied to audiences’ sheer devotion and admiration towards the dazzling world of cinema. 

Exploring ‘prop culture’ as a valuable and critical art form is Mad Prop’s host, Tom Biolchini, a self-proclaimed movie nerd who sets out to review the wide array of props that collectors have formed entire museums around. Many of these collections exhibited throughout the documentary can be defined as entire conglomerates due to the overt size and range of relics amassed over the years.

One particularly notable display comes from the Lyon located ‘Musée Cinéma et Miniature’, a French museum akin to that of a vault filled with a mix of the most unique and iconic artefacts from cinematic history. Whilst the specificities of the objects are best left to be self-discovered, the exhibition ranges from 1980s horror favourites to Hollywood blockbusters. 

Alongside the countless displays of movie mementoes is a series of interviews between Biolchini and a whole host of industry specialists, prop connoisseurs and creators, as well as actors such as The Springwood Slasher himself, Robert Englund, Lance Henriksen, who notably played the android officer Bishop in the Alien franchise, followed by the multi-talented Mickey Rourke, star of 9 ½ Weeks (1986), Angel Heart (1987) and Sin City (2005) — to name a few. 

Despite the examination of mass collecting, Mad Props does not abandon the individuals who see collecting as a hobby, saving up and then attending auctions and spending ‘hundreds, not thousands’ on treasured, sentimental pieces. Culminating a prop collection is for everyone, just as the passion behind collecting is ubiquitous.

It is this notion that forms the skeleton on which Mad Props is based upon. From the various legends featured through to the humble collectors, followed by the director and host himself, Mad Props is a love letter to cinema. This remarkable movie was created by fans and very much made for fans.

You can catch the film Sunday 29th September at this years festival, tickets here!