ST. LOUIS — Lynn Venhaus has enough compassion to fill four warehouses. As the summer turns to fall, she's using it to pay tribute to her late son, Tim Venhaus.
It was last December that an otherwise normal Sunday morning turned into a case of instant sorrow for Venhaus, a local film critic for the Webster-Kirkwood Times who also writes for the Belleville News-Democrat among other outlets. What was supposed to be an award voting meeting for the St. Louis Film Critics Association morphed into sadness when Tim passed away at the tender age of 34 that morning. She wrote a lovely tribute to Tim for STL Limelight shortly after.
At the time of his death, Tim was attending DePaul in Chicago, working towards his MFA in Screenwriting. An outpouring of love followed the New Year, but it wasn't until the summer season where a parting gift was found. Tim had written a short dark comedy called "Dad Eat Dog," and Lynn was determined to make the movie happen. Her son and Tim's brother, Charlie, is helping direct and produce the film.
Friends and collaborators from Los Angeles and New York have joined the project, such as director of photography Ryan Patrick Culbertson along with director of photography/producer Zachary Wiegmann and jack of all trades Jon Robben. Everybody on set is doing more than two things. The goal is simple: Seeing her son's final completed script to the end, a celebration of his life and personality.
The star talent is homegrown. One of St. Louis' finest actors, Spencer Sickmann, is playing the lead role of Jimmy, a family man down on his luck who runs all over St. Louis looking for his lost dog, Bongo. If you could combine Judd Nelson and a young Nicolas Cage together, you'd have Spencer. On set, he switches from desperate horror to inane confusion, but once the cameras go off, he becomes a vivid storyteller. This helps his portrayal of Jimmy, a man who finds himself on the hardest forms of luck when "Dad Eat Dog" commences.
Kidnapped by an unknown pair of masked assailants (played by Allied Marketing rep, Joe Moskus and local film critic, Tom Stockman), Jimmy has been ordered to eat his dog, but he will aspire to find and save it before anything bad happens.
If you haven't guessed that Tim was a huge Coen Brothers fan, let me bring you to that intersection. The script is equal parts intuitive, darkly hilarious, and a stream of untamed consciousness that includes homages to Steely Dan and eclectic films from the 1980's. It's a small film with a big heart, one that aims to preserve the late man's memory.
According to Lynn, this isn't just another movie. "It's really more than a movie. This matters to people," she said. "This film will capture Tim's voice and his spirit will be kept alive through his work."
The majority of the crew is comprised of people who knew Tim or were close friend with him. One of Charlie's friends, a professional editor, will cut the film once it is completed. The plan is to screen the film in mid-December at a festival, which will hopefully be the beginning of its distribution.
This past Saturday night, the film shoot came to my home in Princeton Heights, near South Hampton and St. Louis Hills. A large group of people descended on and inside my front lawn, street corner, and house. The crew set up equipment, moved furniture around, took their time in honoring Tim's vision. It was like watching a local arena get set up for a concert. At times, I wondered if it was tedious or getting out of hand, but by the end, I understood what was taking place. This was how a film set works, each chime meaning something and every movement beneficial to the next idea.
All I had to do was look to my left and right in order to see someone smiling, another working hard, or someone else talking with Lynn or Charlie about Tim. It wasn't a job; it was celebrating a life. The best kind of memorial is spent doing what the departed felt the most passionate about. That's not sitting around stuck in grief's cement, but getting up and making a movie in his hometown.
I offered my home even though I barely knew Tim, more so because I love Lynn's heart and think of her as a lovely ally in life. I have gotten to know Charlie a little and the family too, good people like Tom Davis. Davis was at the Tivoli in 2015 when Tim's short film, "Two Typewriters and A Microphone," screened at the St. Louis Filmmakers' Showcase.
As one would say, it's a family affair taking place in South City.
Sickmann's involvement really highlights the shoot, taking it to another level. The man has stories to fill a Netflix special, and his dad is an American hero. Rocky Sickmann was a Marine Embassy guard in Iran, one of 52 Americans taken hostage for 444 days. Many decades later, Spencer was an extra in Ben Affleck's Academy Award-winning film, "Argo." He's the lead in "Dad Eat Dog," and basically ran on fumes all weekend during the seemingly endless shoot. If you saw a mad man in a baby blue suit, that was Spencer giving 110%.
Early Monday morning as the light gathered its troops for a dawn ambush, the shoot concluded with a scene down on Locust, one that yours truly was a part of. That's right, for the first time since middle school, I am stepped in front of a camera to read lines. I played a guy named Harry, who came to a local bar called Riv's to watch a Steely Dan cover band but found himself thrown into Jimmy's adventure. I had seven pages of dialogue to get into my head and it was terrifying at first, but I didn't hesitate in accepting the job. Why? For Lynn, Tim, Charlie and the rest.
Some movies are mere productions: paychecks and a notch on the belt of a career. The Venhaus production is something rare: a film made particularly for the love of the game, to enrich a legacy, keeping something alive and helping an avid film spirit endure against tomorrow's doubt. As set photographer, Chas Adams noted it's a labor of love.
Stay tuned for updates on the film premiering in December and entering film festivals. Since movies don't get made in St. Louis very often, this is truly a special event that you'll want to get in on at the ground floor.
