Raven Banner Entertainment Archives

Lunatic: The Luna Vachon Story Pays Tribute to Wrestling’s Boldest Outlaw

Lunatic: The Luna Vachon Story is a fierce, compassionate portrait of a trailblazer who refused to shrink herself for anyone, charting how she carved out space in a hostile business and the cost that defiance carried behind the curtain.

Vancouver, BC Premiere
November 26 at the Rio Theatre
* with director Kate Kroll and guests in attendance for a post-screening Q&A.

The Vachon family’s influence on professional wrestling is legendary, and Lunatic: The Luna Vachon Story narrows that legacy to one of its most compelling figures. Once Gertrude “Trudy” Elizabeth Vachon committed to the ring, she knew she had to stand out. She built the character of Luna—fierce, theatrical, and utterly impossible to ignore—and pushed every button she had to. In an environment that wasn’t built to welcome her, she crafted a persona that looked right at home in a Mad Max wasteland.

The film opens during what many consider wrestling’s most electrifying period: the WWF “Attitude Era” of the late 1990s and early 2000s. It was a time when spectacle often overshadowed sport, and some performers used that fame to pivot into film careers. Luna took a different path. She stayed committed to the craft itself, valuing sportsmanship over the hype.

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[Interview] Steve Kostanski on Frankie Freako and The Love for Makeup FX!

“As much as I wanted to have way more elaborate stuff in Frankie Freako, puppet wise, the bottom line is it needed to be janky…” said Steve Kostanski.

Steve Kostanski and Frankie — **Frankie Freako is available to purchase on Amazon USA.**

Steve Kostanski always loved the magic that film offered at an early age, and when he was creating stop motion films in the garage, little would he know it would lead to a career in the special effects industry. While some people think of him as part of the Astron-6 collective, where they create 80s-centric, no-budget, mixed-genre movies, they have done independent works too, like this filmmaker has with Freddie Freako, to realise they’re a tight group says it all. His name is also there in The Void and Manborg, where he has co-director credit.

His efforts are to be commended since he loves the medium; he watched shows like Mega Movie Magic (1997-2004) on Discovery Channel to learn how film effects were created back then. And on that fateful day where he and his buddies saw Army of Darkness, he knew what he would do for the rest of his life!

“That was when it really clicked,” said Kostanski, as I interviewed him via Zoom. “For me, it seemed like they were normal guys having fun goofing around; except somehow it became accessible. What they made stopped being this nebulous idea from Hollywood and that led to me to seriously want to make it in the film industry.

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Steven Kostanski’s Frankie Freako Wants to Party, and We Know How to Find This Crazy Dude!

Frankie Freako is the type of guy who means well, even though at first glance, he’s all punk all the way.

Coming to VOD beginning on October 25
(iTunes and Amazon Prime)

Although four years seems long in between projects, the team of Astron-6 deserves all the credit in a Steven Kostanski led movie, simply titled Frankie Freako. This movie shows just how wonderful puppet gore movies are. As much as I like to use the word puppetcore, that’s the name of a company who produce just as equally wacked out films. Also, they make mostly all puppet productions

When this film includes live-action as part of the equation, what’s presented is very Muppet-like, especially in how they move around the screen. But in this case, instead of revelling in slapstick, the concept delivers the horrific and humour in droves. The last film I saw was Frank and Zed.

That’s because somewhere in space, hobbit-sized characters who want to be like DC Comics’ Lobo insist that they bring their party anywhere in the cosmos. There’s a broadcast where the title character (voiced by Matthew Kennedy) offers to livin up anyone’s doldrum life. When Conor (Conor Sweeny) is an office employee with no gumption to succeed, not even his fellow workers seem to be fighting for inter-office promotions to get a better job. I suspect that before becoming such a Stephen Fry (from Futurama) he had not much of a social life. As for what his wife, Kristina (Kelly Wordsworth) saw in him back when they first dated, not even her sexual advances can stir him up.

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