This movie seemed tailor-made for my conga line of odd pop-culture obsessions. Weird b-movies, special interest comic book nonsense, a film about film, episodic format with a keen eye for period specific cliches and tropes, Adam Rifkin. Bingo!
The movie starts off well enough with the beginning of the wrap-around story which introduces the characters about to sit through 4 trashy midnight movies made by 4 different directors. The first vignette by Rifkin is easily the best. It's super low-brow but quite funny and super adept at portraying and satirizing its period of schlocky horror movies and equally schlocky catastrophe movies. Rifkin knows his stuff. The way characters talk and act, the subtle misogyny, set design, music, even the dodgy effects with charming stop motion work and questionable chroma keying. It's on point. More please, I'm hooked.
Unfortunately at this point there's still one and a half hours of movie left to watch and wow does it feel long. None of the other vignettes are remotely as good and the very few jokes they have are done to death, dug up and done some more for good measure. The second vignette is already pretty painful, like a fatally deflated version of a Troma movie. If you make Poultrygeist look dignified you're in trouble. Not quite absolute zero yet. In a parallel universe it might have made for a good John Waters movie.
The third short, Diary of Anne Frankenstein, had at least a funny tasteless synopsis to go off and might have worked as a five minute internet short in the early days of youtube à la Ken Russell's "Ein Kitten für Hitler" or as a fake trailer in the Rodriguez/Tarantino Grindhouse project, but it runs out of steam head-spinningly quickly and at this point it's already become obvious none of the other directors are as dedicated, talented or cineliterate as Adam Rifkin.
Afterwards you enter the absolute abyss of comedy. A black hole where no fun can enter. It made my soul travel back in time and unlaugh at things I previously laughed at. Bad dramatic movies can be comedy gold mines but bad comedies are just dreadful. The roaring finale gets absurdly terrible, it's almost art at this point. I'm talking Vogon poetry level of awfulness. Andreas Schnaas level of awfulness. The Wayans-esque humour, the cluster bombing with unnecessary, ill-fitting movie quotes, the faux edgy attitude, it made me feel embarrassed to the very essence of my being.
I'm sure everyone involved had a fantastic time making this movie and they all seem like lovely people I'd hang out with. I love the concept of the movie and the idea behind half of the short stories but it turns out comedy is actually really hard work best left to professionals.
The movie starts off well enough with the beginning of the wrap-around story which introduces the characters about to sit through 4 trashy midnight movies made by 4 different directors. The first vignette by Rifkin is easily the best. It's super low-brow but quite funny and super adept at portraying and satirizing its period of schlocky horror movies and equally schlocky catastrophe movies. Rifkin knows his stuff. The way characters talk and act, the subtle misogyny, set design, music, even the dodgy effects with charming stop motion work and questionable chroma keying. It's on point. More please, I'm hooked.
Unfortunately at this point there's still one and a half hours of movie left to watch and wow does it feel long. None of the other vignettes are remotely as good and the very few jokes they have are done to death, dug up and done some more for good measure. The second vignette is already pretty painful, like a fatally deflated version of a Troma movie. If you make Poultrygeist look dignified you're in trouble. Not quite absolute zero yet. In a parallel universe it might have made for a good John Waters movie.
The third short, Diary of Anne Frankenstein, had at least a funny tasteless synopsis to go off and might have worked as a five minute internet short in the early days of youtube à la Ken Russell's "Ein Kitten für Hitler" or as a fake trailer in the Rodriguez/Tarantino Grindhouse project, but it runs out of steam head-spinningly quickly and at this point it's already become obvious none of the other directors are as dedicated, talented or cineliterate as Adam Rifkin.
Afterwards you enter the absolute abyss of comedy. A black hole where no fun can enter. It made my soul travel back in time and unlaugh at things I previously laughed at. Bad dramatic movies can be comedy gold mines but bad comedies are just dreadful. The roaring finale gets absurdly terrible, it's almost art at this point. I'm talking Vogon poetry level of awfulness. Andreas Schnaas level of awfulness. The Wayans-esque humour, the cluster bombing with unnecessary, ill-fitting movie quotes, the faux edgy attitude, it made me feel embarrassed to the very essence of my being.
I'm sure everyone involved had a fantastic time making this movie and they all seem like lovely people I'd hang out with. I love the concept of the movie and the idea behind half of the short stories but it turns out comedy is actually really hard work best left to professionals.