Raiders! The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made

In 1982, three 12-year-old boys began a shot-for-shot remake of Raiders of the Lost Ark with a borrowed VHS camcorder in their small Mississippi town. The trio completed the film seven years later, by which time they weren't even speaking to each other, and this homemade effort would have surely disappeared if not for a bootleg copy that made its way to filmmaker Eli Roth, who shared it at a film festival. Although it can't be shown commercially, the film has been screened in special one-off showings around the country. Directed by Jeremy Coon and Tim Skousen, this documentary inspired by Alan Eisenstock's titular 2012 book will be the closest most people get to that astounding DIY project. Raiders! features new interviews with the now-grown collaborators (and friends and schoolmates they drafted into the project), contemporary footage of the three friends reuniting to finally shoot the last scene (using funds raised on Kickstarter), and a wealth of clips from the original production (including outtakes that not only reveal the spirit of the endeavor but also the potentially life-threatening situations that the boys put themselves through to get shots). Raiders! tells a terrific story while also presenting a portrait of growing up in the ‘80s, capturing youthful ingenuity and passion along with the ways in which popular culture interacts with our dreams and lives. Recommended. (S. Axmaker)