Calvin is a loser. A loser’s loser. He’s so loser-iffic, his goldfish rejects him. After our mousy hero loses his job and girlfriend, he meets his six-foot-eight, easygoing neighbor Tim. Things start looking up for Calvin when Tim promises to hook him up with hot women. Sounds great, until Calvin discovers that Tim’s a convicted sex-offender ย who especially digs boy-next-door types in their early thirties. Now, when Tim drops seemingly innocuous sports talk like, “Come over some time and I’ll wipe the floor with your ass,” the invite is straight-up ominous.
This dark comedy is masterfully executed in the short film Boy-Next-Door, directed by and starring Houston native Travis Davis. The film screens today as part of WorldFest, and is a winner in the fest’s short-comedy category. Davis’s film has made the festival rounds and has scored big, generating big buzz at HBO Comedy Arts Festival and the Just for Laughs festival in Montreal.
Credit his knack for smart directing ย and casting: When Davis went on the hunt for a huge, threatening-looking, but sympathetic man, he lucked out when he saw Richard Moll from the ’80s sitcom Night Court coming out of an elevator. “I knew it was Tim,” says Davis, who’s now an established actor in L.A. He convinced Moll to join his film, and Boy-Next-Door was born. Now, Davis is working on a feature film, The Ten-Timer, about a guy who develops multiple personalities to please every woman he dates. Losers? Multiple personalities? Um, is there something we should know, Travis? Meet Davis and cheer on a former Boy-Next-Door when his movie screens at 1 p.m.
Sat., April 29
This article appears in Apr 27 – May 3, 2006.