The Second Coming Volume One
Writer/Director: Richard Wolstencroft. Cast: Michael Tierney, Gene Gregorits, Boyd Rice, Jerome Alexandre, William Margold, Larry & Tora Wessell, Nina Antonia, Jesse Merlin, Pete Doherty, Kim Fowley, Kristen Condon, Richard Masters. After announcing itself as THE SECOND COMING VOLUME 1 and presenting a quote from the WB Yeats poem of 1899, ‘The Wind Among The Reeds’, a
man (Michael Tierney) picks himself up off the dirt floor of a barren landscape and begins to walk. An electronic soundtrack pulsates ominously. Unable to get a lift while hitchhiking the man turns to the sky to bellow the eternal existential question, “What do you want me to do?” He answers himself by conducting magic ceremony 777 in front of a small and blackened winged-demon all the while invoking the second coming. Title credits roll on frozen and tinted images of mass panic stock footage and the jaunty most upbeat music for the whole film, as we also learn that THE SECOND COMING is Based/Musing on the poem of the same title by aforementioned Irish poet William Butler Yeats. We also get to immediately understand that THE SECOND COMING is a Vision by Wolstencroft who is also the main photographer and wrote the film in collaboration with the cast. A montage of damaged modern buildings, a fashion show and razor ribbon give way to an inter-title (one of three) that touts itself as Part One before providing a further Yeats quotation, “Turning and turning in the widening Gyre”. Wolstencroft has been shooting THE SECOND COMING for the past five years in various locations across the planet (from Hanging Rock to snowy Colarado). Highly experimental in tone and structure with the links between sequences weaving around concepts of narrative clarity. Conspiracy theory seems to unite some elements of THE SECOND COMING. The philosophies of Aleister Crowley and Charles Manson do emerge quickly to seemingly motivate the characters we encounter all who seem to know that apocalypse is imminent, or at least who are having dreams of it. Then the now late Kim Fowley drops in (this maybe his last appearance in anyone else’s film) to describe Manson as, “The Atomic Jesus”, as he spiels directly to camera. Noted Adult film industry historian William Margold chips in with the observation that, “Several of the Manson women became involved in X-rated films.” Elsewhere, Wolstencroft appearing in front of the camera under the screen du plume, Richard Masters, casually orders the execution of a courier. As evidenced in previous work like PEARLS BEFORE SWINE & BEAUTIFUL AND THE DAMNED Wolstencroft has been always working towards merging philosophy, poetry and the cinema. With THE SECOND COMING and its improvised delivery by largely non-actors he presents what could be the purest and most engaging condensation of all these interests yet. It’s hard to deny that whichever way you look at it THE SECOND COMING is a unique moment in the history of cinema. Q & A with Director after screening" - By Michael Helms from MUFF 16.
