Screen Play

RAVE

If Greg Harrison's Groove was the first film to celebrate the diversity of the San Francisco rave community, then Krauss's Rave is that film's gritty doppelganger, the anti-Groove. Unfolding over the course of 12 or so hours in Los Angeles, Rave cuts documentary-style interviews with its youthful lead characters into footage of what must be the world's most disastrous rave, during which overdoses occur, racial hatred arises, and nice guys die. The acting and technique (not to mention a rousing credit sequence) are uniformly good, but viewers familiar with the rave scene may come away feeling as if they've just been hit over the head with an American Family Association two-by-four. Peace, love, unity, and respect may be the bywords of rave culture, but Krauss' film plays more like a dreary ABC After-School Special in which common teenage quandaries result in death or worse, and your friendly neighborhood E dealer is a psycho killer. Qu'est que c'est? (Fri, Oct 13, 11:45pm, Dobie; Tue, Oct 17, 9:30pm, Arbor)