Love him or hate him, Robert Rodriguez is on of the biggest names associated with guerilla filmmaking, a form of independent filmmaking that uses low budgets, small crews and stolen locations to get the best out of production value while still keeping cost extremely low. His book Rebel Without a Crew is an interesting read for any indie filmmaker. It recounts the making of his ultra-low budget feature El Mariachi, where Rodriguez goes as far as to sell his body to science to finance the film. From the mid nineties to early 2000’s, there was a surge of guerilla filmmakers like Rodriguez. Kevin Smith, John Linklater and Quentin Tarantino not only were getting features made for thousands of dollars, but also found the films getting picked up by major studios and winning big at film festivals.

Rodriguez’s short film “Bedhead” was made in 1990 and if you watch closely you will see common themes that he would come to revisit in later films. It tells the tale of a girl who gets in a fight with her older brother and as a result gains super powers due to a small case of head trauma.

From the opening credits, we begin to see some trademarks that would define Rodriguez’s career. I’ve already discussed Rodriguez’s love for comics before and we see that reflected in the film’s introduction.

Although Rodriguez is probably best know for films like Sin City, Machete and From Dusk Till Dawn, he is also the guy responsible for the popular Spy Kids franchise. In fact, despite his penchant for directing highly stylized, violent action movies, his highest grossing films come from his work with children. “Bedhead” foreshadows Rodriguez’s penchant for making children’s films like Spy Kids and The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lava Girl as well as the many familial themes those films explore.

Another common characteristic of Robert Rodriguez films is his exploration of Mexican and Mexican-American cultural themes. Films like Machete and Once Upon a Time in Mexico borrow heavily from classic Mexploitation films, where films like Spy Kids portray the life a common Latin-American family with extraordinary abilities. “Bedhead” has shades of the latter, depicting a sibling rivalry within a Latin-American family unit.

Finally, there are a few homages to other filmmakers that can be found in “Bedhead”. It’s pretty clear that Rodriguez borrowed heavily from Sam Raimi and his Evil Dead films. The famous high-speed POV tracking shot from The Evil Dead can be seen in “Bedhead” along with Lock and Load montages popular in many of Raimi’s films as well as the Rambo franchise.

“Bedhead” is the type of short I like to see from famous visionary directors like Rodriguez. The type that someone can watch and immediately recognize common themes that will come to define a director’s more iconic films. Shorts like these show how an amateur director can start with an idea and then expand upon it later in life.