Andrew McElhinney hadn’t graduated from high school by the time he finished his second film, “A Maggot Tango,” in 1995; in fact, he was only a 16-year-old Abington Friends School student. This summer, the film turns 30 years old, and will see its second public screening in over 20 years at PhilaMOCA on July 21.
Just 33 minutes long, “A Maggot Tango” is esoteric, bleak, profound, and crude, but nevertheless charming. Filmed, directed, written, and edited in Chestnut Hill by a cast of teenagers, the short shows viewers the descent of a young woman named “A” into a world of sex, drugs, and depravity.
Played by 18-year-old Erica Downie, “A” runs away from her family and into a surreal world where she witnesses the death of a young boy and two lovers before she must confront her own mortality.
McElhinney also directed the acclaimed 2000 gothic horror film, “A Chronicle of Corpses,” which was set in the area. Filmed entirely on 16mm black-and-white film, “A Maggot Tango” shows early influences that emerged in his later work. The story is inspired by the structure of Ambrose Bierce's 1980 short story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” and Jean Cocteau's 1932 French-language film “Le sang d'un poète.”
“I had been doing a lot of creative writing,” McElhinney said. “So, looking for material, I started to draw on these short stories or prose poems that I'd been working on. And that's ultimately what became ‘A Maggot Tango.’”
Throughout the winter of 1994 to 1995, McElhinney worked on his script, which was mostly a list of shots and camera lineups, as there is no dialogue in the film. Amanda McClain, who plays an angel, read the drafts and offered feedback during Monday morning chemistry classes.
“Andrew was driven to be a film director. I admired his sense of purpose and ambition,” McClain said. There is so much creative energy reaching out in every frame of the movie. It was so fun to make, and it's such a unique vision. The highbrow and lowbrow tensions, the postmodern sense of story frame.”
After that school year, during the spring and summer of 1995, McElhinney rounded up his friends and began filming in locations around Northwest Philadelphia. Locals will recognize scenes filmed in the basement of the Chestnut Hill Library, shots in alleyways off Germantown Avenue, or along the Wissahickon.
McElhinney didn’t drive, nor did he or any of the cast members have cellphones. Downie, the film’s star, drove everyone around while McElhinney’s sister made costumes.
“It had not occurred to me to pre-rehearse anything or find a choreographer, but cast member Lizzie Kay did what she could, day-of,” McElhinney remembers.
Additionally, his cinematographer dropped out of the film just before shooting, so as well as writing, directing, editing, and acting, McElhinney became chief cinematographer. Further, just two weeks before filming began, he lost the actor playing “Death” and her son, who was to play the “young boy.” Phil Hooven took over the role of the boy, but was double the age of the written character.
One striking aspect of the film is its copious nudity. Three characters throughout the film have fully nude scenes. Nevertheless, McElhinney made it clear that even with the sometimes chaotic filming schedule, all the actors with nude scenes were 18 or older (even though he wasn’t) and signed release forms.
Thus, as the shoot wrapped that summer, McElhinney began editing. He worked reel-to-reel with a 16mm moviescope and a pair of hand-cranked rewinds. He cut the film and himself, literally, tearing his thumbnail off on a rusty reel.
Then, in June 1995, he found coverage from a local paper for the first time: the Chestnut Hill Local. “We were all so impressed to receive newspaper coverage! No one had ever written about me as a film director before,” McElhinney remembered.
The film debut was a success, catching on in the Philadelphia underground cinema scene with screenings at the Chestnut Hill Library, The Five Spot, Milk Bar, The Khyber Pass, and more. These showings helped set McElhinney up for further success with his next film, “Magdalen,” which also played on a double feature with “A Maggot Tango” at the New School in 1998. So groundbreaking was “A Maggot Tango” that a copy resides in the permanent collection at New York City’s Museum of Modern Art.
“I'd honestly say he's one of the most interesting local filmmakers of the past few decades, without a doubt,” said director of programming at PhilaMOCA, Eric Bresler. “[McElhinney] pulls influences from classic arthouse and foreign cinema and creates works that may have a narrative but have much more in the way of subtext and ambiance.”
McElhinney has always been clear that “A Maggot Tango” will never see a home release on any streaming service, nor did it get a DVD or VHS release back in the day. In fact, the last time the film was shown (beyond a 2024 career retrospective at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco) was in 2003 at North Third Street’s Fancy Pants Cinema series.
Now the public can watch “A Maggot Tango” at PhilaMOCA, beautifully restored in 4k, with McElhinney in attendance.
“A Maggot Tango,” screens on Monday, July 21 at PhilaMOCA, 531 N. 12th St, Philadelphia. Doors open 8 p.m., screening begins at 8:30 p.m. Tickets are $6 at philamoca.org.
