Deep Ellum News

Noise task force recommends breaking Dallas' Deep Ellum into tiers

Shh, Traveling Man, keep it down.

Photo by Joseph Haubert

Following an incomprehensible crackdown on noise in Deep Ellum — Dallas' biggest entertainment district — a task force has come up with a list of recommendations that include breaking the neighborhood into tiers where different noise levels would be allowed.

Noise became an issue in April 2021 when residents and businesses in the district started filing noise complaints to Code Compliance. These were noise ordinances that already existed, but had not been enforced diligently.

Deep Ellum venues banded together to defend their right to be noisy, and in July, the Deep Ellum Noise Task Force was created, comprised of the Deep Ellum Foundation, Deep Ellum Community Association, Code Compliance, Dallas Police Department, and live music venue owners.

After five months surveying residents and businesses, taking and monitoring decibel readings, and assessing international best practices, they issued a report which is online.

Recommendations include:

creating an overlay district featuring several tiers of allowable noise
expanding band loading zones
clarifying and streamlining the Department of Code Compliance Services' practices
ramping up education on noise within the district

There are three tiers, as follows:

Tier 1 will be a core in Deep Ellum that allows noise levels up to 92 decibels until midnight on weekdays and 2 am on weekends.
Tier 2 will be a commercial and entertainment corridor that allows up to 78 decibels until 10 pm on weekdays and 12 am on weekends.
A third tier, the Deep Ellum Cultural District, will follow regular city of Dallas noise levels.

As a point of comparison: For "office, retail, and parking districts," 63 decibels is the maximum permissible daytime decibel limit allowed. In "light and heavy commercial districts," it's 65 decibels. In "industrial districts," it's 70 decibels.

Their report also recommends not pointing speakers towards the right of way.

The task force's surveys found that it wasn't just music venues and bars, but also restaurants.

And here's an interesting tidbit: "The majority of complaints were received in relation to venues operating on Good Latimer Expressway." Someone has it in for Bottled Blonde.

"This Noise Task Force worked diligently to really understand the needs of all stakeholders who come to be a part of this community, and we are proud to present a set of recommendations that will allow Deep Ellum businesses and residents to continue to grow and thrive together," said Stephanie Keller Hudiburg, Executive Director of The Deep Ellum Foundation.

The task force included resident and musician Trey Carmichael who says in a statement that, "after a few decades playing and/or living down here, I’m happy to see a more comprehensive ordinance developed. Noise is a problem in any busy neighborhood, but it’s a complex matter in our live/play areas. The standard ordinance was simply too broad for all stakeholders to be treated fairly. The task force worked hard to find solutions that work for everyone in Deep Ellum."

Business owner Allen Falkner says in a statement that it's important to preserve Deep Ellum's role as an entertainment district.

"It’s been a very difficult couple of years with COVID-19," Falkner says. "All the businesses in Deep Ellum have suffered greatly and are doing their best to recoup losses and return to some form of normalcy. "The one thing that has remained the same is that Deep Ellum has been known as an entertainment district for a century. For many, it’s the heart and soul of Dallas with music being the cornerstone to its success and survival. These recommendations on the noise ordinance support music, entertainment and small businesses. They will not only help Deep Ellum, but will keep Dallas the cultural icon of Texas that it deserves to be."

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Movie Review

Faces of Death returns with modern twist on cult horror film

Photo courtesy of of IFC Films

Dacre Montgomery in Faces of Death.

True horror fans will likely be familiar with the 1978 cult film Faces of Death, which purported to be a documentary showing real-life killings in gory detail. It didn’t, of course, but that didn’t stop rumors from continuing to spread for decades. Now, almost 50 years and multiple sequels later, comes a new version of Faces of Death, an actual movie that pays homage to the original in interesting ways.

Margot (Barbie Ferreira) works at a YouTube-like company called Kino as a content moderator, flagging videos that violate the company’s policies. This means her job often involves seeing some truly despicable things from all manner of depraved people. One day, though, she comes across a video that seems a little too real, and after seeing more similar videos, she starts to believe they’re genuine murders.

Going against her company NDA, she starts to investigate the videos on her own, which puts her on the radar of Arthur (Dacre Montgomery), who is actually kidnapping people and killing them on camera through methods seen in the original Faces of Death film. It’s not long before Arthur tracks her down, with a plan to make her one of his next victims.

Written and directed by Daniel Goldhaber (How to Blow Up a Pipeline) and co-written by Isa Mazzei, the film is not so much scary as it is creepy, with the occasional gross-out sequence. The idea of having someone emulate the killings in the cult film is a good idea, and pairing it with the modern-day attention economy - in which content creators go to increasing lengths for clicks - is a clever twist on a concept that other films have done.

The film as a whole is a commentary on how social media and video sharing sites have often decided to prioritize profits over the well-being of their users. Margot is shown allowing videos involving violence and sexual assault to stay on the site while nixing ones depicting how to use Narcan or demonstrating putting on a condom on a banana. Josh (Jermaine Fowler), Margot’s boss, is even explicit in the company mandate that outrageous videos drive views.

While Arthur has the makings of a good villain, there are few attempts to make him seem truly diabolical. His kidnappings often seem more spur-of-the-moment than calculated, and even though he has a well thought-out dungeon at home, the house’s location in the suburbs seems to make him vulnerable to easy discovery. Goldhaber and Mazzei leave more than a few unanswered questions along the way that take away from the intensity of the story.

Ferreira is yet another actor from Euphoria who’s capitalizing on her exposure from that show. She plays Margot’s increasing anxiety well, and when the action ratchets up in the final act, she meets the moment in a satisfying way. Montgomery returns to the vibe he had while playing the evil Billy on Stranger Things, and even though his character doesn’t fully live up to his potential, Montgomery sells his evil for all it’s worth.

The new Faces of Death may not be what some are expecting given the reputation of the previous films, but it’s a solid horror/thriller that uses the brand as a launching pad into something different. It doesn’t make much of a dent in the scare department, but it does give its violence and gore a degree of relevance in today’s often desensitized world.

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Faces of Death is now playing in theaters.

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