Total Badass 15y Press Release

• Cult classic doc Total Badass throws down a quinceañera screening at Hyperreal.
• Bob Ray launches Odd Odyssey, the online series chronicling the documentary’s 2010
  chaotic US film tour.

Austin filmmaker Bob Ray’s critically acclaimed and rarely screened documentary, Total Badass, about Austin cult hero, scofflaw, writer, singer, weed dealer, felon, and man-about-town, Chad Holt will celebrate 15 years of defiling/delighting eyeballs and earholes on October 4, 2025 with a screening featuring a new ending and in-person Q&A with Bob Ray.

The merrymaking, at East Austin’s dopest microcinema, Hyperreal Film Club, will double as a launch party for the online series, Odd Odyssey, about the film’s rowdy and unruly tour where Bob Ray and Chad Holt piled into a car and screened the movie in over 60 locations coast-to-coast across eleven weeks in 2010. And, yes, they went to jail. Promo vid for Total Badass / Odd Odyssey Party Screening @ Hyperreal: https://youtu.be/VUjJDAOknik

 

Total Badass (2010/2025, 94 min, unrated)
Saturday, October 4, 2025; doors at 7:00 PM, screening at 7:30; Q&A to follow
at Hyperreal Film Club - 301 Chicon St., Austin, TX 78702
Tickets here: https://withfriends.events/event/6SCDOAcx/total-badass-at-hyperreal-film-club/

“a portrait of life on the artistic and social fringe and a thriller…
a cross of Frederick Wiseman and Hunter S. Thompson.” -The New York Times

“a ballsy documentary...a totally unapologetic profile of the ubiquitous Austin hero.”
-Vice Magazine

"a psychological treat" -Phoenix New Times

“genuinely funny and touching” -Monday Magazine

“an outrageous and hilariously seedy journey into the Austin underground...
[Total Badass] bravely goes where no documentary film has gone before.”
-Flavorpill

From the early-90s all the way up into the late 20-teens, Chad Holt reigned supreme in the Austin underground scene. A legend, icon, singer (Fruntbutt, Gun Totin’ Meat Eaters, B.F.E), writer, performer (Rock Opera, Slacker 2011), publisher (Whoopsy! Magazine), weed dealer (shwag), and the biggest pants-meat haver this side of the Pecos, Chad Holt entertained like no other.

At a pivotal moment in the counter-culture of Austin’s transition from weird li’l town of musicians and oddballs into the bustling and glitzy center-of-attention the city has become, Chad Holt flapped the freak flag loud and proud. Mofo kept it weird af all the way through.

The near-impossible-to-find film will have a rare public screening on October 4 at 7:30 at Hyperreal Film Club. Filmmaker Bob Ray (Rock Opera, Hell on Wheels, Slacker 2011, The Adam Reposa Saga, Sacked) will share stories and field questions in a post-screening Q&A. Chad Holt died of butthole cancer in 2019 so we’ll pour one out for him. RIP

Warning: this film is unrated and not suitable for everyone, as it features some of life’s funner fun: sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll, humor, heart (and Guinea pigs). So either be warned, or come revel in the splendor of Austin’s bygone times while living it up in celebration of Austin’s patron saint of freaky-deaky counter-culture, Chad Holt.

To view the Odd Odyssey trailer and series, go here: http://crashcamfilms.com/oddodyssey

Information about Total Badass, including the trailer is here: http://crashcamfilms.com/films/total-badass

A note about Odd Odyssey from director Bob Ray:
In 2010, Chad Holt and I toured all over the USA screening our documentary film about him called Total Badass.

We spent eleven weeks on the road, hit 60 cities, and collected plenty of video of the tours/antics/idiocy. We shot the footage with the plan to fold it into a daily tour journal type blog. We’d write about the tour and life on the road and sprinkle some raw vids and pics alongside the text. Build some momentum for the tour.

We meant well. Tried hard enough. But the behemoth hurdle of posting daily was too great. Of the two people tasked with writing the journal one of them did all the driving, booking, promoting, coordinating, delivery, etc. The other one, the renowned writer-y guy of the pair, did all the spending of every waking minute scouring OK Cupid to find gals to hook up with in the next town. So, between the two very busy guys, not much writing happened. The more Chad got laid, the more the tour journal project fell apart. He got laid plenty.

After Chad’s passing in 2019 (butthole cancer, RIP), I decided to unearth the footage and do something with it. Odd Odyssey is that something.

In the spirit of the tour, I tried to keep the editing as raw as possible while recreating the feeling of being on a long tour: weirdness, delirium, funny shit, side adventures, unexpecteds, toll roads, the collection of events that becomes the storyline flowing along. And loads of buddy comedy whatnot. Every bit of the audio and video that is the tour journal was shot on location with stupid little pocket cameras.

If you wanna tag along, that’d be swell. It’s a low key funny exploration of the cinema landscape in the underground/DIY world as well as the literal landscape of parts of the USofA, circa 2010. So plz check it out if that’s your thing. Join us for the trip.

About Total Badass
Texas filmmaker Bob Ray catapults the Austin subculture onto the big screen, reveling in its inspiring, unique and deliriously offbeat glory. With his latest documentary, “Total Badass,” Bob Ray takes you on an outrageous and hilariously seedy adventure into the Austin underground music and arts scene via wild man-about-town, social deviant, musical/stunt performer, sex fanatic, Guinea pig enthusiast, writer-publisher, father, weed dealing felon, hip-hop impresario, trashcan jumper and local maniac Chad Holt. Exploiting life as his unwitting canvas, Chad's take-noprisoners artistry assaults funny bones, political correctness and common decency as he strives to leave a creative scar on the planet. Strap in for the riotous ride and follow this icon of the Austin counterculture as he blazes through his final year of felony probation, living his own brand of civil disobedience while manning the helm of a life-altering family crisis and going out smoking!

About Odd Odyssey: the Total Badass Tour Journals
In the year 2010, writer/performer/provocateur Chad Holt and filmmaker Bob Ray teamed up to make a vérité style
documentary about Chad Holt’s last six months of felony probation, his life, his creative output, and his relentless dickcentric drive. Despite some critical hullabaloo, their doc, Total Badass, went mostly unseen due in no small part to the
aforementioned dick flopping across the screen. Unsatisfied, they planned to bring the doc directly to the people
themselves and set forth on eleven weeks of touring around America screening the flick in over 60 locations. Come jail
or high water, this is their trip. It was jail. They went to jail.

 

Contact: Bob Ray crashcamfilms@hotmail.com
For a link to a press screener of Total Badass, contact Bob Ray at crashcamfilms@hotmail.com