Bad Lucky Goat

This absurd, yet grounded indie comedy is an impressive feature film debut shot on a micro budget. Corn and Rita Denton are teenage siblings who don’t get along, but after they accidentally kill a goat, they must work together to stay out of trouble. The unintended slaughter incites a horribly unlucky day of trying to cover up one mistake after another—relentlessly chasing money to pay back their debts and cover their tracks. Along the way, the brother and sister face car mechanics, butchers, pawnshop owners, and gangsters, all while accompanied by a deteriorating goat corpse. Is the dead animal bad luck, or is all that spiritual stuff just nonsense?

Dead Lucky Goat follows the hilarious journey of the unlucky Denton siblings, and packs a major punch with stunning camera work of the breathtaking Colombian Caribbean Islands. The film delivers dry, slow-burn humor: a dead goat rides a motorbike between siblings with a realistically complicated relationship.

“Filmmaking is hard (…) but it is worth every tear once you hear an audience laugh,” said director Samir Oliveros after the film premiered this spring. The tears certainly paid off in the making of this unique feature. Dead Lucky Goat is relatable in human struggle, refreshing in location, and shocking in humor. This story delivers an exciting and well-rounded experience for viewers, though graphic imagery for goats. Alex Heller

Samir Oliveros (b. 1990) is based in Bogota, and studied film at School of Visual Arts in New York. At first wanting to shoot Bad Lucky Goat as his thesis film, he saved the ambitious project for post-graduate, and shot it in just 18 days, funded primarily by a Kickstarter campaign. The film is based on his own relationship with his sister, and premiered at the SXSW festival this spring.