OKC DYI filmmaker Mickey Reece to be honored with a hometown retrospective

Oklahoma filmmaker Mickey Reece will be honored with his first home-state retrospective in Oklahoma City.
The three-night event will showcase seven of his films and pay tribute to his late friend and collaborator, Dustin Sanchez.
Each night will feature film screenings, cast and crew reunions, and question-and-answer sessions.

Since 2008, Oklahoma City moviemaker Mickey Reece has created more than 30 boundary-pushing independent films in his home state, from a vividly 1970s-style psychological thriller about two sisters vying for the affections of a man who may or may not be a vampire to a punchy action comedy about a widowed cowboy who leaves his country home for the big city, where he hopes to find a new wife to be a mother to his son.

Now, the prolific DIY writer, director and actor has selected seven of his features and short films to showcase in his first home-state retrospective, which is also intended to pay tribute to a longtime friend and collaborator who died last year.

“The Cinematic Journey of Mickey Reece: A Retrospective” is slated for Jan. 15-17 at the historic screening room inside the Paramount Building on downtown Oklahoma City’s Film Row. Hosted by the Oklahoma Film Exchange, which took over programming for OKC’s century-old Paramount screening room last year, the three-night event will include film screenings, cast and crew reunions and question-and-answer sessions.

“I’ve done two retrospectives in the past, but both of them were in New York. This is the first one I’ve done in Oklahoma City,” said Reece, who performed as the one-man band El Paso Hot Button before launching his film career.

“This friend I’ve had since ninth grade, Dustin Sanchez — we made bunch of movies, a bunch of music together our whole life — he died recently. … I wanted to do something for him.”

Along with an homage to Sanchez, who died last August, the retrospective will spotlight early features from Fall Films, the original collective Reece made movies with, as well as an acclaimed arthouse horror-mystery that didn’t get much local play due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Newcastle native recently chatted with The Oklahoman about plans for the retrospective, which will feature Peter Kuplowsky, the lead programmer for the Toronto International Film Festival’s popular Midnight Madness section, as moderator.

OKC retrospective to open with a ‘Climate of the Hunter’ reunion

“The Cinematic Journey of Mickey Reece” will spotlight films hand-picked by the Oklahoma native. All screenings are open to the public with first-come, first-serve and pay-what-you-can admission.

On Jan. 15, Night 1 of three-night showcase will showcase the cult-favorite moviemaker’s 2023 short film “Kondo,” about five widows sharing a home during wartime, and his feature “Climate of the Hunter,” which had its world premiere in September 2019 at Austin, Texas’ Fantastic Fest, the country’s largest genre film festival.

An erotic thriller, “Climate of the Hunter” also played at Canada’s 2020 Fantasia International Film Festival, which went virtual due to the pandemic.

“We only had one Oklahoma City screening of ‘Climate of the Hunter,’ and it was during the pandemic. So, I was like, ‘We need to have a real hometown screening of that with everybody involved,'” Reece told The Oklahoman.

Starring Oklahoma actors Ben Hall, Mary Buss and Ginger Gilmartin, “Climate of the Hunter” is the follow-up to the surreal “Strike, Dear Mistress, and Cure His Heart,” Reece’s breakout film that bowed at Austin’s Fantastic Fest in 2018.

Filmed near Tahlequah in February 2019, “Climate of the Hunter” is set in the ’70s and tells the twisty tale of two sisters competing for the attention of an enigmatic man from their past who might be a vampire. Reece and surprise guests from the movie will reunite for a Q&A after the screening.

Filmmaker is paying homage to his late collaborator Dustin Sanchez

The retrospective continues Jan. 16, and Night 2 has been designated “A Tribute to Dustin Sanchez.” A central Oklahoma musician and actor, Sanchez released music with Reece via LIVERsLIVER Records and performed at local venues like OKC’s Blue Note and Norman’s The Firehouse.

During their three decades of friendship, Reece and Sanchez created six full-length albums, 12 feature films and more than 40 short films together.

“Before he died, he left to go to Mexico and had a bunch of things that he wanted me to keep for him. They were in all in tubs, and a lot of it was just camera gear and stuff. But then one of the tubs, he was like … ‘This one right here I want you to guard with your life,'” Reece recalled.

“When he died, I went through that tub … and it was everything that we had done since ninth grade together, all of our music and all of our movies for all that time. … It was just a big emotional impact on me. So, I wanted to do something for him.”

Night 2 will open with 1998’s “Children of the Lord,” a 20-minute short film on VHS that has never been shown publicly. It will be followed by 2013’s “Tarsus,” an addiction drama that features Sanchez’s most acclaimed performance.

A Q&A with Reece and surprise guests will lead into the night’s last selection: 2012’s “Knights of Malice,” a fantasy drama that not only stars Sanchez in the lead role of Jack, a crooked bail bondsman with a secret, but also credits him as the feature’s co-writer alongside Reece.

“They all have a reunion aspect to them. … The big thing about showing these movies is that Dustin can’t be there, but we have these other old movies that we have that those people are still around — and they can be there. It’s like, ‘Let’s just do this while we can; you never know what’s going to happen,'” Reece said.

“I just wanted to get everybody back together and involved again and just talk about it: talk about what the memories were, talk about what it meant to us and things like that. So, it sounds heavy and emotional, but I think we’re still going to be able to have fun with it.”

Mickey Reece to show his personal favorite of his films at OKC retrospective

In 2008, Reece made his first feature film, “Le Corndog Du Désespoir” — that’s French for “The Corndog of Despair” — and debuted it at The Opolis, a micro-venue in Norman. He did the same with his next eight features, through 2010’s “Time Machine.”

“Then, we did our first one at Oklahoma Contemporary, which, at the time, was called City Arts Center. And we did those for the longest time, up until we showed ‘Alien’ at deadcenter (Film Festival),” Reece said. “From there, it just went.”

The precursor to Oklahoma Contemporary hosted 14 movie premieres for Fall Films, and Night 3 of his OKC retrospective will celebrate that cinematic collective and its many projects.

“It was called Fall Films because we didn’t want anything kitschy. … It was just like, ‘Let’s create the most normal, bland name so that no one knows what to expect,'” Reece recalled.

On Jan. 17, the writer-director and surprise guests from Fall Films will participate in a Q&A in between screenings of two features from that era. First up will be the second OKC showing ever of 2010’s “Punch Cowboy,” about a country widower who heads to the big city in search of a new wife.

“That was the big breakthrough. We were just making these movies, and we’re like, ‘We know no one’s ever gonna like this.’ But then we made ‘Punch Cowboy,’ and we were like, ‘I think people could actually, like, LIKE this one,'” he recalled.

“It’s totally unpredictable. It starts out as one movie, and then you’re like, ‘OK, well, now we’re in a totally different movie at this point.’ But it’s fun and good.”

The three-night event will conclude with Reece’s favorite feature he has directed: the 2011 science-fiction film “Walrus.” On the outside, it’s a story of underground arm wrestling, alien abduction and betrayal; on the inside, it’s a tale of friendship and accepting people for who they are.

“It’s black and white. It’s fantastical. It’s along the same lines as ‘Country Gold‘ or ‘Mickey Reece’s Alien‘ or ‘T-Rex. … This was just the first foray into that,” the writer-director said.

What should local film fans know about Mickey Reece’s latest project?

The OKC retrospective doesn’t include Reece’s latest feature, “Every Heavy Thing,” which had its world premiere in 2025 at Canada’s Fantasia fest in Montreal, Quebec. The auteur again filmed in Oklahoma, shooting in the heat of summer and leveraging the state’s film incentive program.

“Everything I’ve ever shot is made in Oklahoma. Until that day comes when I can’t do that anymore, I will continue to do that,” Reece said. “It’s essentially like a Brian De Palma movie from memory. … It’s a mix between ‘Dress to Kill’ and ‘Body Double’ and ‘Blow Out,’ and like, ‘Yeah, this is the kind of movie we’re making, and, no, I’m not gonna go back and watch those and get the details or anything.'”

“Every Heavy Thing” is set against a series of women’s disappearances in fictional Hightown City. The noir comedy, which is still playing the festival circuit, stars Tulsa native Josh Fadem as an ad seller for the last alt-weekly newspaper in the state. He becomes entangled in a conspiracy after witnessing a murder.

Although they won’t get to see his latest finished project at the retrospective, his home-state fans might get to be in his next one: With written permission, attendees on Reece’s “Cinematic Journey” may be featured in a film that “blurs the line between fiction and reality,” which will be shooting simultaneously during the three-night event.