After funding fell through at the last minute for a fully-scripted feature, Metal Gods, Porterfield dispensed with the script and rehearsals, reconvened the cast of non-professionals culled from the working-class outskirts of Baltimore, and reanimated the spirit of the original idea onto the bare bones of a simple scenario: the death of a 23-year-old from a heroin overdose. The tragedy serves as an axis around which stories from the actors' personal lives intertwine with the largely-improvised fiction. Their relationship to the dead boy sometimes the only bond, alienated family members and old friends reunite – to variously apathetic, uncomfortable, or painful ends. Divulging more freely to an off-screen interviewer whose identity is never revealed, the characters' interactions with one another are usually mediated via paint ball, graffiti, drugs, video games, tattoos – culminating in an awkward karaoke-and-beer funeral for the departed. The self-conscious authenticity and quiet nihilism of Putty Hill matter-of-factly returns its gaze to a broken, disaffected reality of the American present. – BG