Today on the Scroll: The most successful made-in-Toronto movie of the moment keeps Eugene Levy close to home.

"Direct-to-DVD Releases Shed Their Loser Label," read a recent headline in the Business section of The New York Times, explaining how American Pie: Presents Beta House is currently on track to sell more than a million units.

Released on Dec. 26, 2007, this third postscript to the big-screen American Pie trilogy cost less than $10 million to make, and will see further revenues from rentals and the sale of distribution rights to cable outlets. There may not be a more lucrative film made in Toronto this year, thanks in part to the Ontario Film & Television Tax Credit, and the ability of Eugene Levy to walk over to the set on the University of Toronto, along with scenes filmed at his own alma mater, McMaster University.

Discerning which scenes were filmed on which campus may have to wait for The Criterion Collection version of Beta House, but the Silver Dollar Room’s signage and interior serves as the setting for assorted fraternity pledging shenanigans and the obligatory brawl. Not since the era of Police Academy, Adventures in Babysitting and Elmore Leonard’s novel Killshot has the tavern earned such due.

The rest of the film is totally concerned with splattering ejaculate, mammoth breasts and beastiality — albeit of both the male and female persuasion. And there’s something subversive about the opening scene featuring the Rubenesque character of Margie (Christine Barger) nakedly riding corpulent fratboy named “Bull” (Dan Petronijevic) until she starts gagging on a bratwurst and has the Heimlich Maneuver administered by incoming freshman Erik Stifler (John White).

Besides the recurring presence of Eugene Levy as Beta alum and bumbling lawyer Mr. Levenstein, the Stifler genealogy links Beta House’s storyline to its theatrical predecessors. It’s a rather flimsy thread, as 29-year-old screenwriter and co-producer Erik Lindsay is freely willing to admit. A native of Grosse Pointe, Michigan, he graduated from the University of Southern California, and a teen sex comedy script he wrote called The Naked Mile (filmed in Toronto in 2006) fell into the right hands.

“I was told in film classes that if you want to be successful you should write what you know,” he says over the line from his snow-free home on Manhattan Beach in Los Angeles. “And in six years of college, I had plenty of wild experiences to draw from. I was even running a casino in my dorm room by the end of that time.”

Lindsay got his first break as a bit player in the quarter-century-too-late 2002 sequel Slap Shot 2: Breaking the Ice, starring Stephen Baldwin. He correctly sensed that the wave of sickly sweet Y2K-era Generation Y teen movies would transition into a demand for lewder fare, even as the American Pie franchise fizzled out in the theatres with American Wedding. Yet, the success of Wedding Crashers and The 40 Year-Old Virgin suggested the bar was being raised a bit.

“Good Will Hunting won the Oscar around the time I started in film classes,” explains Lindsay. “So, that’s the kind of movie everyone in school was striving to make, much like an actor strives to be the next Marlon Brando or James Dean. But if you’re six months out of school and you end up on a soap opera or goofy sitcom, how are you going to say no to that? Regardless of your artistic integrity, it might turn out to be the best possible scenario. It’s all a matter of opinion.”  

And now, prepare for a wave of film students who figure they can write the next Knocked Up or Superbad, because how hard can it be? “Those movies have shown how, even if every other word is the F-word, you can still create something with heart — where most of the talk is about sex and yet it’s not lecherous by any means. People want to laugh, and what’s happened is that you’ve got 50-year-olds finding the same things funny as the 15-year-olds do.”

American Pie sequels, however, tend to the lower end of that demographic — with multiple character storylines evidently designed to be watched dozens of times, as per the template established by National Lampoon’s Animal House. The 2005 straight-to-DVD release American Pie: Band Camp (not written by Lindsay or shot in Toronto, but still with Eugene Levy) was inspired by Disney sequels that exploit existing characters through lower-budget animation, assuming that little kids won’t care. Lindsay is well aware that no one was publicly yearning for a fifth and sixth American Pie, but the sales success means he’s getting the biggest laugh.

“The production is good and the price is right,” he says. “Plus, it helps to have Eugene Levy on the box cover. He’s the face of the series, and carries some weight with the fans, because everybody who loves these movies loves him.”

Indeed, an old SCTV fanatic can only speculate whether Levy regards himself more like Milton Berle doing guest spots on Diff’rent Strokes and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, or Sir John Gielgud and Peter O’Toole appearing in the porno version of Caligula. Since Beta House's the last reel involves Levy presiding over a sequence of Greek Games between Beta House and Geek House, maybe it’s the latter: “When we think of the term Greek Olympiad, we hearken back to ancient traditions. We conjure up images of mighty warriors, in their little skirts, getting all oiled up, writhing around with one another. Some called it wrestling. Others called it … something else … but, enough history … on with the game …”

And then it’s like, you know, SPOILER ALERT: Widespread brassiere removal, two nerds jousting, a pursuit of a greasy pig, an homage to the Russian roulette scene in The Deer Hunter, wife carrying, beer puking, and a contest to determine which fratboy can endure the longest lap dance without producing seminal fluid.

“It’s not just boob jokes for the sake of boob jokes,” explains Lindsay. “And it’s not just fluid jokes for the sake of fluid jokes. It does help that the DVD version of the movies are unrated — it gives me a chance to think further outside of the box.”

And it’s enough to convince producers that Lindsay can help sell movie tickets, too. Coming soon to a theatre near you: Cougars. Do you even need a synopsis?

“The best thing about writing is that no one needs to give you permission to do it,” he says. “If you want to be an actor, either you need to pay someone to do it, or win an audition. Writers can write and write and write as much as they want.”

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