Maxance Vincent
There may never be a scarier film on how America’s obsession with firearms than Javier Horcajada’s From My Cold Dead Hands, which had its North American premiere at the Fantasia International Film Festival. It is so scary that the filmmaker doesn’t have to interview anyone or speak on the images he presents by including a voiceover narration. Rather, all he does is compile videos he has found on YouTube to showcase how petrifying the country’s relationship with guns has become.
This could be an off-putting approach for some because the only ‘narrative arc’ Horcajada uses is iraqveteran8888’s Top 10 Reasons to Be a Gun Owner video, which outlines why everyone should bear arms. By slowly revealing what reasons the YouTuber lays out while communicating other videos that showcase how mortifyingly stupid those ten reasons are, Horcajada’s mashup is one you can’t look away from, even if what you’re seeing is soul-shocking.
One of the film’s first videos is that of a gun owner cooking bacon on his silencer by wrapping it in tin foil and shooting a few rounds to heat it up (credit where credit is due: it stupidly works). This video gives a general idea of what the film will be about, but it gets far darker than its initial presentation. It then becomes clear that Horcajada won’t comment on the situation because he doesn’t have to say anything: the images he presents speak for themselves. At first, it’s amusing, and it gets especially hilarious when he shows a FailArmy compilation of people mishandling firearms or melting snow with a flamethrower, thinking they’re the most badass human beings in the universe.
Of course, the images always have a sickening quality, but the amateur videography of the YouTube footage makes the early videos feel playful. Since the footage itself is shot by people other than Horcajada, he’s asking us to observe their silliness as America seems to be the only country in the world with an obsessive, almost fetishistic connection to guns (one such clip hammers this point home in ways that are far too explicit to describe in this, or any, review).
But the movie quickly takes a more disconcerting turn as we progressively get to one of the reasons why someone should be a gun owner: “Firearms provide a way for families to bond with children.” This is where the often amusing but scary juxtaposition doesn’t become playful anymore. The audience gets a firsthand account of true childhood indoctrination, where parents literally brainwash their child into thinking guns are an essential part of the American way of life by visiting a firearm store, getting excited to be snagging a bulletproof vest as a present (with the kid’s name on it), and seeing a parent teach their young boy how to handle, and then shoot an assault rifle.
Horcajada’s message becomes loud and clear, and subsequent images now have a far more sinister meaning. What came before also takes a different signification because we realize that each person who carries a gun is likely to transmit this ideology through their parents. Their sociopolitical leaning didn’t occur on its own. They were born and raised inside a gun-crazy family who will stop at nothing to ‘keep’ their Second Amendment right free (of course, Charlton Heston’s famous “From My Cold Dead Hands” NRA speech is shown and acts as a gap-bridger between the tonalities the film adopts).
All of this is never directly told but shown to us by the people who have recorded themselves and published it on the web for the world to see. Horcajada doesn’t need to do anything to demonstrate how sick this country’s relationship with guns has become and how nothing is done to reverse the course of a disease that keeps mutating itself. Younger generations are more compelled to imitate their parents, and if they don’t set an example for them, the disease will spread and keep on spreading. The end result is the “thoughts and prayers” we get after each mass shooting, with nothing else done to solve this ever-growing pandemic.
The film’s message hits even more powerfully in the wake of the assassination attempt on former President Donald J. Trump. Someone tried to take the life of a former President and almost succeeded. What was done to ensure this would never happen again? Thoughts and prayers, and nothing else to tackle the fundamental problem that is always at the heart of every tragedy in America, and there’s no need to spell it out for you.
You know it. I know it. Something’s definitely wrong with those damn guns, but society has numbed itself too much on the too-frequent mass shootings and now assassination attempts that they think “thoughts and prayers” are sufficient to address the issue. And if society continues to raise a generation that revolves around their ‘right to bear arms,’ this endemic will become far worse than it is now.
In From My Cold Dead Hands, Horcajada doesn’t explicitly say what I just laid out, but as we watch the video clips, it becomes increasingly clear that America needs to do something, anything, about their guns – and fast. If anything, the film acts as a cry for help in a society that has deluded itself into thinking guns are essential for its way of life. That’s the sickest part of this 64-minute document that will stand the test of time as one of the most important films ever produced on a country’s obsession with mass tragedy, all in the guise of “protecting their freedoms.” If that doesn’t scare you, then America may be in even more trouble than we thought.
SCORE: ★★★1/2
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