Mike Kuchar, Death Quest of the Ju-Ju Cults, 1976, b&w, sound 30 min, 16mm-to-digital
Restoration by the Kuchar Brothers Trust, Anthology Film Archives, and Francois Ghebaly Gallery. Digital Remastering by FotoKem. Special thanks to Michelle Silva.
Thanks to the efforts of the Kuchar Brothers Trust, in collaboration with Anthology and Francois Ghebaly Gallery, Mike Kuchar’s DEATH QUEST OF THE JU-JU CULTS, has been newly restored! Arguably Mike’s solo magnum opus, DEATH QUEST is a mini-epic that gleefully and lovingly combines two of Mike’s favorite – if seemingly irreconcilable – genres. What appears at first to be a straightforward prehistoric tale soon morphs into something else entirely, with the deux ex machina appearance of…sorry, no spoilers. In any case, whatever the genre, DEATH QUEST was made with a nearly non-existent budget, but with admirably game actors, Mike’s uniquely resourceful visual gifts, and his inimitable ability to combine mischievous parody with wide-eyed sincerity.
It’s impossible to overstate the importance of both Mike and George Kuchar’s work to Anthology Film Archives throughout its history: Jonas Mekas was istrumental in bringing recognition and attention to their work in the early 1960s through screenings and discussion in his Village Voice “Movie Journal” column; their early films PUSSY ON A HOT TIN ROOF (1961) and TOOTSIES IN AUTUMN (1962) are part of the Essential Cinema repertory cycle; and we’ve preserved and shown their work, and hosted both of them, many times over the years. So it’s especially gratifying to present this new restoration of DEATH QUEST concurrently with our 50th anniversary celebrations (anthologyfilmarchives.org/about/50th). (To see Mike’s statement on the occasion of the anniversary, click here: vimeo.com/482807836)
“This movie was based on a comic book story I wrote but was never published, so I decided to tell it in a black and white film. I wanted to do it in color because it involved actors as cave people, had dense jungles as its setting, and a raging volcano in full eruption. My budget couldn’t buy color film, so I was determined to give this movie a lushness in texture that didn’t need color to be effectively pictorial..
Enter a shimmering forest and encounter the Pot Boiling turbulence of pre-history tribes in conflict. See sacrificial virgins, volcanoes, knife fights, spaceships… It’s all in this black and white saga of pure escapement photographed amid upper New York’s muddy river region one fine summer day back when the world was young in 1976.” –Mike Kuchar