In 2010, Roy C. Booth, a prolific writer of fiction, fantasy and horror, as well as a poet, journalist, and playwright with 57 published stage plays, turned his attention to movie directing and made the 20-minute short billiards film The Day Lufberry Won It All. 

Created on an estimated budget of $300, the movie feels like an amateur, inferior mash-up of the Australian dystopian billiards movie Hard Knuckle and the classic The Twilight Zone episode “A Game of Pool.” Hard Knuckle was pretty bad, and this is much worse; it’s not in the same universe as The Twilight Zone, but few billiards episodes are.

Yet, for all the terrible acting, stilted dialogue, and crude special effects, the film also feels wonderfully indifferent to its audience, as if it were not made to be watched by anyone but an exclusive group of scientifictionists and comic buffs (as well as local friends from Bemidji, Minnesota) who appreciate its literary code and are privy to its inside joke.

The Day Lufberry Won It All takes place ten years after an unspecified event “scorched the earth beyond recognition,” leaving the strong to inherit the planet and those without tradeable skills to perish.  Books are the new currency, reflecting a forgotten time. Across this bleak landscape walks Lufberry, a hippyish cross between Donald Sutherland and The Fonz. He can outrun a helmeted hooligan, negotiate with a lacrosse-stick wielding bandit, and refuse the seductions of the local streetwalkers. But, most important, he brandishes a cue stick. 

Lufberry’s peregrination takes him to a nameless basement bar, where he can trade two of his books for a chance to hustle pool. But, this is no Book of Eli. The unfamiliar books he offers include The Plea of Apollisian (about a child who “will be born to the fallen mistress of mercy”) by Shane Walker; Feminine Wiles (a 16-tale anthology of “ladies of darkness, women of horror, sisters of the night”) by John Grover; a book imprinted with a Heuer Publishing logo; and most important, The Monster Within Idea (a collection of stories about “monsters born of the human mind”) by R. Thomas Riley.

Here is where the encoded back slaps and head nods abound. For starters, one of the stories from The Monster Within Idea is “The Day Lufberry Won It All.” Mr. Riley also co-authored the novel Diaphanous with Mr. Booth.  And who better to leave a review of Diaphanous than Feminine Wiles author John Grover? Shane Walker writes the Abyss Walker series, which was expected to feature a forthcoming short story from Mr. Booth called “Privateer: The Maiden Voyage.” As for Heuer Publishing? They are a century-old publishing house serving the educational and community theater markets. Oh yeah, they also have published seven of Mr. Booth’s plays.

Moving beyond the choice book sampling, Mr. Riley also plays the aforementioned “helmeted hooligan,” who should not be confused with the “lacrosse bandit,” played by the director Mr. Booth. And if that’s not sufficiently familial, then keep an eye open for Mr. Booth’s wife and three children, all who also appear as part of the supporting cast!

Now, back at the bar, things get very weird as a nattily dressed patron named Garth Deon initially challenges Lufberry to a “race to five, alternate breaks on shots, no time limits, foul on all balls, one timeout per rack, with a one game sudden death tiebreaker.” But, Garth then suggests they spice it up by having the winner get the other’s “chi, neshamah, soul.” Garth talks in outdated slang, using phrases like “ain’t that groovy,” “joshing,” “easy peasy,” and “fair and square.” Lufberry seems unfazed by both the colloquialisms and the life-or-death wager, but awestruck by Garth’s “uncanny, uncommonly good” playing. I found that hard to swallow. The only thing uncanny is how bad is the pool-playing as well as the multiple unimaginative pool-pocketing montages.  

I won’t spoil the ending, but it involves the revelation that Garth Deon is an anagram of “THE DRAGON,” and there is a guy named Saint Michael who has a vested interest in the outcome of the match. 

Finally, I want to extend a huge thank you to Mitch Berntson, the producer and cinematographer of The Day Lufberry Won It All. After my attempts to locate the movie online failed, I reached out to Mr. Booth, who put me in touch with Mr. Berntson. He graciously offered to go through old drives to locate the film and burn a copy for me.