Customer Reviews

The Crude Oasis [VHS]

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Director Alex Graves made this, his first feature, for a reported $25,000, which is the Evian budget for most movies. It's a brilliant example of art over money. Haunting, intelligent and visionary, this should be required viewing for audiences whose minds have grown fat on more expensive, but decidedly lesser productions.

This is an example of a no-budget movie which has been put together with so much creativity and imagination, that the film-makers succeed abundantly in transporting you to the atmospheric interior world inhabited by their characters. The vast Kansas plains and murky midnight oil field storms perfectly reflect the distraught confusion of Karen Webb and Harley Underwood - two people drawn together by a dream, as well as by their own hidden pain. Part mystery, part psychological thriller, part textbook example of how low budget film making can and does manage to capture the viewer just as much - if not more - than your average, everyday blockbuster.