Documentary Pays Respects to a Hollywood Cemetery’s Rebirth

Laemmle Theatres’ newest Documentary Days series gets off to a terrific start with “The Young and the Dead,” the story of the amazing revival of the derelict Hollywood Memorial Park cemetery under the new moniker Hollywood Forever. “The Young” refers to Tyler Cassity, the visionary who bought the 62-acre landmark for a mere $370,000 and devised its comeback with a group of associates, some of them his friends since seventh grade in Missouri.

“The Dead,” of course, refers to the remarkable number of Hollywood legends resting there in eternity. Cassity may have gotten the place for a bargain, but what faced him was enormous, so run-down was the cemetery under the management of its eccentric owner, Jules Roth (1900-98).

The cemetery has been meticulously restored and turned into a state-of-the-art operation, encouraging clients to videotape their life stories or those of their departed loved ones, to be presented as part of services. As anyone who has attended a funeral at Hollywood Forever can attest, the video is an enriching experience, assembled with taste and imagination.

In their repetition, filmmakers Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, makers of the memorable “Off the Menu: The Last Days of Chasen’s,” tend to let their film become too much of a promotion for the cemetery, as worthy an endeavor as it is. But this is a forgivable excess, considering what a warm, respectful and amusing, when appropriate, portrait they create of Hollywood Forever.

“The Young and the Dead” leaves the impression that Cassity has not only rescued a major Hollywood landmark, but has done it while carefully walking a tightrope between showmanship and good taste. “The Young and the Dead” screens Saturday and Sunday at the Sunset 5 at 10. It will then screen at 11 a.m. Aug. 24-25 at the Monica 4-Plex, (310) 394-9741; Aug. 31-Sept. 2 at the Playhouse 7, Pasadena, (626) 844-6500; and Sept. 7-8 at the Fallbrook, West Hills, (818) 340-8710.

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Among the films screening at the Egyptian in the American Cinematheque’s third annual Fantasy, Horror and Sci-Fi Festival are “Bundy” (Sunday at 4 p.m.) and “Viy” (Sunday, following the 6:45 p.m. screening of Alexander Ptushko’s 1952 “Sadko,” which the cinematheque included in its Ptushko tribute last year). “Viy” (1967) was made by students Georgi Kropachyov and Konstantin Yershov under the supervision of Ptushko, a special effects maestro, and was adapted from a short novel by Nikolai Gogol.

Matthew Bright’s “Bundy” is a smart, crisp and chilling study of the man for whom the term “serial killer” was coined. Ted Bundy was arrested in 1978 and ultimately confessed to killing more than 20 women before he was executed in 1989.

Well-played by Michael Reilly Burke, Bundy is a Florida State student who dreams of a career in politics and favors three-piece suits. He lives with and is supported by his longtime girlfriend, Lee (Boti Ann Bliss), a single mother with a large, comfortable home. An airhead and a nag, Lee is crazy about him and increasingly eager to tie the knot.

Ted is not a guy who handles pressure well, and soon he is stalking young women to rape and murder. He grew up in poverty, learning at age 5 that his sister was really his mother, and at 17, that his father was not really his father. But can this background and Lee’s nagging be enough to set off a rage-consumed serial killer?

Bright seems to be cramming as many graphic killings as he can in 98 minutes. Yet he leaves us in the dark as to what is driving Bundy. To all of Bundy’s rampaging, Bright takes an absurdist tone that suggests he may regard such questions as beside the point.

Ptushko’s enchanting “Viy” seems faithful to its folkloric source. While on a Lenten vacation with fellow seminarians, Khoma Brutus (Leonid Kuravloyv) finds shelter in an old woman’s barn only to discover that she is a witch. As Khoma beats her in anger, she turns into a beautiful young woman (Natalya Varley). Before she dies, she tells her grief-stricken father, Sotnick (Aleksei Glazyrin), to summon Khoma to pray for her soul for three nights. What lies in store for poor Khoma is magical, scary and ultimately enigmatic. The Egyptian is at 6712 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. (323) 466-FILM.

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The Malibu International Film Festival, which runs Friday through next Thursday at the New Malibu Theater, 3822 Cross Creek Road, will present 10 p.m. screenings Saturday and next Thursday of Mark Anthony Galluzzo’s clever suspense thriller “R.S.V.P.”

Set in a Las Vegas high-rise apartment, “R.S.V.P.” stars Rick Otto as Nick, a perennial student, told by a friend that he is overeducated and under-ambitious. Indeed, all of his friends are graduating except him, and he decides to throw a party in celebration. Nick, a philosophy major, is an essentially ineffectual man who intends that none of his 11 guests leave the apartment alive. How Nick attempts to pull this off is diabolically clever, and how well he succeeds becomes a matter of increasing suspense. (310) 452-1180.

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Filmed in a Hollywood Hills home called the Castle, which Andy Warhol rented for his L.A. visits, “Imitation of Christ” (1967) takes its title from the 15th century Thomas a Kempis treatise, said to be the favorite reading of the film’s star, Patrick Tilden-Close, a troubled youth who had, in fact, been a child actor. “Imitation of Christ” will be shown Wednesday at the Egyptian, after the 7:30 p.m. screening of the unavailable-for-preview “The Closet” (1965) as part of MOCA and the American Cinematheque’s Andy Warhol Does Hollywood series. (323) 466-FILM.

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Opening a regular run Friday at the Music Hall in Beverly Hills is Iraj Karimi’s “Going By,” which cuts back and forth among four cars driving north from Tehran to the Caspian Sea. (310) 274-6869.