An odd-looking fella in a wheelchair (Paul Ford) introduces six short stories about (mostly) ordinary people who find themselves in weird, awkward situations. Things will get uncomfortable, he warns us. And well, that, they do.
The individual components of this hexad of horror barely merit a synopsis - they're basically punchlines agonizingly stretched out to ten minutes, hoping against hope to achieve a sort of Simpsons rake joke effect (basically, what's unfunny can become funny through repetition). For example: A man fails to get an offhand "that's what she said!" joke, and it sends him off spiraling into madness, trying to find out who "She" is. Or a woman tricks a date into sniffing her dad's ashes, making him start to lose his hair and spout dad jokes.
Most of them aren't terrible premises, on paper, but there are precious diversions to be found - just one overlong (usually dirty) joke dying in slow motion right before your eyes. It aims for discomfort humour and... well, I guess it does get pretty cringeworthy, in the same way the Tim and Eric show does, but more uninspired and, well, fucking boring. Lovers of the more out there Adult Swim catalog may enjoy this more than I did. Chemical assistance might help, or watching it with people who are easily shocked. Though don't be surprised if they don't return your calls after you've subjected them to this.
At least it looks great; Director Tyler Cornack (who co-wrote along with Ryan Koch and William Morean) stretches a measly indie budget to... well, TV levels, but good-looking TV levels. Very slick, with attempts made to switch up the look of the shorts to portray different tones. Cinematographers Joel Lavold and William Morean do a great job. Other than some effective corpse makeup, don't expect much in the way of special effects, but the music (by Conack and Koch) is pretty great.
Getting through six stories in under ninety minutes means that the pacing and variety somewhat compensate for the mediocre writing. How mediocre? The guy who goes crazy in the opening segment does it by the medium of putting together a (very tidy) conspiracy board and writing all over himself with a sharpie, 90's crazy movie dude style. He then tries (and fails) to put his wife's hand down the trash compactor... but two minutes later they're both acting as if nothing happened in front of company. Describing the script as quarter-baked would be too kind. Though to be fair, that's probably the worst short of the lot.
The best is the second one - a girl meats corpse kind of story with a rote punchline. It's elevated by actors Olivia Herman and Matt Rubano, though, both giving committed, funny performances, and - fair is fair - some pretty inspired douchebag dialog for one of the characters. If you didn't like the first story, you can safely bail out once this one's done.
That's about as positive as I can manage to get about this movie. I guess some of the premises are pretty creative, too, but none of them ever go far enough - just mildly amusing ideas stretched out beyond capacity. There's a sort of frat boy energy to the whole thing that I found deeply annoying, too; "You won't believe what I'm about to throw at your eyeballs bro!"
As far as technical calling cards go, it's an excellent one; Making movies is hard, making indie movies is harder, and making one that looks and sounds as good as this is a goddamn miracle. Maybe it'll help everyone involved move on to better things. In the case of the writers, hopefully it won't feel as lazy as this.
As far as technical calling cards go, it's an excellent one; Making movies is hard, making indie movies is harder, and making one that looks and sounds as good as this is a goddamn miracle. Maybe it'll help everyone involved move on to better things. In the case of the writers, hopefully it won't feel as lazy as this.
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