Behind the Scenes

The second of the great unfinished faux-western sagas, The Revenge Epic was another early attempt to make something bigger, meaner, and more cinematic than the sketches and camcorder experiments that had come before it.

Ray Revello emerges from the Pacific Ocean soaked, furious, and ready to kill somebody. As escaped prisoner Roland Kawada, he staggers onto a quiet stretch of Pacifica shoreline with seawater pouring off his clothes, giving the unfinished production one of its most ambitious early images. He soon crosses paths with a would-be Good Samaritan, played by Ray’s real-life cousin Michael Agustinelli. The offer of help is rewarded with a kitchen knife to the gut. Roland then steals the man’s hat and walks away.

The moment is punctuated by Michael’s scream, a sound effect so obviously looped and repeated that it pushes the whole scene into accidental comedy. The group was still learning how to handle sound.

The shoot itself left an even stronger memory. Ray had to wade fully into the cold Pacific and was still soaked through by the time filming wrapped. With no immediate ride home, the crew took refuge in the beachside Taco Bell while waiting for Ray’s dad to pick them up. When he arrived, Frank was understandably furious that his son was about to soak the entire car in stinking Pacifica seawater.

The larger story never made it much farther, but Roland Kawada refused to die. His name continued resurfacing for years in background jokes, news crawls, Easter eggs, and comic-book references, giving the character a much longer life than the film that introduced him.