By now, it’s pretty clichéd to say that digital video technology has made it easier than ever for just about anybody to go out and make their own movie.

That doesn’t make the statement any less true, however, and it doesn’t take much digging – a few clicks here and there on the Netflix site, say – to find dozens upon dozens of wannabe George Romeros and Woody Allens and David Lynches who’ve maxed out a credit card or two in pursuit of that glorious dream that I myself share: to produce a feature film and get it out into the world.

Now, look, before we go any further, let’s get one thing out of the way: yes, it’s easier than ever to make a movie nowadays, but making a good movie remains just as difficult as ever. And, I promise, this post isn’t going to be some rah-rah pep talk about how everyone should go try to make Blade Runner in their backyard. The truth is, although I can definitely muster up some degree of respect for anyone who’s ever actually completed a feature, the majority of no-budget films are pretty terrible, and don’t really deserve to be seen by anyone outside of their directors’ immediate families.

That may sound harsh, but what I’m getting at is that solid storytelling, competent technical skill, and attention to detail don’t cost anything, so there’s no reason why a movie made for the price of a chicken-fried steak dinner can’t engage its viewers on the same level – or, maybe, an even deeper one – than one produced by a studio. To me, if you’re dedicated enough to sacrifice your time, money, effort, and probably sanity to make your own movie, you may as well at least do it right. And for an example of how to do exactly that, you could do a lot worse than Christopher Sharpe’s ultra-low-budget indie effort Sex Machine.

Made for around $8,000 with an entirely volunteer cast and crew in the not-exactly-Hollywood locale of Oklahoma City, Sex Machine succeeds where most other films in its price range fail – it’s entertaining, compelling, and competently made throughout, and feels like an actual movie rather than just 90 minutes of footage slapped together just for the sake of seeming like one. I’d been reading about the film for months on a few of my favorite indie-film websites – Microcinema Scene, where Sharpe is a regular poster on the message boards, and Pulp 2.0, a blog run by Sex Machine producers’ rep Bill Cunningham – and I’m happy to have finally gotten the chance to see it.

Anchored by stylish visuals soaked in fluorescent reds, greens, and blues, the film is part Frankenstein, part El Mariachi, and a little bit Big Lebowski; it combines sci-fi, horror, film noir, comedy, and even a surprising amount of romance into a package that’s a little overstuffed but rarely boring. The story revolves around a guy named Frank (John Howell) who wakes up in the middle of a bloody shootout with no memory of how he got there. Worse, he quickly discovers that his body parts didn’t all originally belong to him – he’s seemingly been stitched together out of discarded pieces of other people, including one arm that bears a “Sex Machine” tattoo and another that used to belong to an African American man. His face bandaged up like the Invisible Man, Frank wolfs down painkillers, tries to make sense of fragmented (and extremely gory) memories that begin to surface, and occasionally wastes one of the sunglass-wearing assassins that for some reason are hunting him down. Eventually, he tracks down his former girlfriend Claire (Jessica Alfrey) and his bowling alley-owner buddy Owen (Sheridan Marquardt), both of whom assumed Frank died months earlier in a car accident; turns out, that’s not far off from the truth, and the reason why Frank has been granted his bizarre new lease on life is very closely tied into the reason why mysterious people are trying to, uh, re-kill him.

There isn’t an excessive amount of action or bloodshed in Sex Machine, despite its pulpy genre trappings, but what’s there looks pretty decent – though obviously done on a budget, the makeup effects are particularly convincing at times (especially in a cringe-inducing early scene involving an implanted tracking device). The visuals impress on a regular basis, almost completely avoiding the static and indifferently composed framings that mar most ultra-indie productions, and squeezing a lot of color and detail out of the mini-DV that Sharpe and his cinematographer Shogo shot on. And while the plot has a few holes that aren’t so easily overlooked, you’ve got to credit Sharpe and co-writer John Oak Dalton for keeping the mystery engrossing throughout and also making a valiant effort toward developing their characters; a lot of the film is actually devoted to the subplot about Frank and Claire’s relationship, which likely would have been overlooked if this were an average-budgeted mainstream action flick.

What resonates throughout Sex Machine is the thought and effort Sharpe and his cast and crew put into making the film something that audiences would actually enjoy experiencing. It’s clear that their interest wasn’t simply in seeing their names on a DVD sleeve, but in telling a worthwhile story, showcasing their talents, and connecting with the kind of hardcore genre fans that would appreciate, say, the Bullitt poster hanging on a character’s wall in one scene or the (unintentional?) Tarantino homages that pop up throughout (dig that gimp mask!).

As I’ve said, though, I wouldn’t recommend Sex Machine solely to folks who just love a good B-movie. As an aspiring/studying/working filmmaker myself, I learned a ton from this flick, and I think anyone else with an interest in making their own movies will, too.

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Incidentally, I’d like to continue focusing on low- and no-budget movies here on the blog, so if you’ve made one or know of any I ought to see, hit me up at nscalia@nhregister.com.