FURIOUS!!!!

Furious~ 1984, Tim Everitt, Tom Sartori, USA

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DAMN. Furious has got to be one the most extreme WTF films I’ve ever seen. I have no idea what sort of trama the human brain would need to have endured in order for it to properly process this film’s plot, if it even has one. This this is madly, wildly incoherent.

THE PLOT~ Honestly, I couldn’t tell you. The caption on the DVD case reads: “KARATE HEROES FIGHT ALIENS FOR CONTROL OF THE ASTRAL PLANE.”  Really? Alright. I really didn’t get that out of this, but okay. That’s what it’s about, I guess. Not sure when that happens, but there ya have it.

It’s horribly made, of course, but we have bigger fish to fry. The real story here is that Furious presents you with the most abstract form of narrative ever, and it’s not deliberate. Don’t confuse whatever the fuck is going on here with the intentional surrealism seen in films like El Topo or Eraserhead, Furious is just straight nonsense, and it happened because some people just aren’t cut out for film making. The truth hurts.

Furious_PosterNo one really acts in this movie. They’re just on camera sometimes. There’s a lot of karate, but the story operates on its own internal system of logic, which no living human can decode. There’s almost no dialogue at all, and when there is, it’s often a short phrases, which are then repeated over and over, about a thousand times. For instance, at one point, Master Chan whispers the words “Simon…. Go home.”…  For like, an hour. Once would have been enough, but no… In a movie where almost nothing is said, we get “Simon… Go home.” about one hundred and fifty times. And what is happening while Master Chan repeats the shit out of his line, you ask? Well, Simon stands silent on a beach, looking out to sea, while Master Chan slowly gets further and further away from him, even though he doesn’t actually move. Yeah! Furious is FULL of stuff just like that. This film had to have been directed by people uniquely incapable of understanding just when exactly they had effectively communicated an idea to their audience. The result is that 97% of the movie is so under-explained that there’s literally no logic holding the plot together at all, and the remaining 3% is just relentlessly hammered into your head without mercy. It’s like absolutely nothing I’ve ever seen before.

Want another example? Happy to oblige! Later on in the film, Simon decides to scope out the bad guy’s base of operations, which appears to be an office building located in the middle of nowhere. Upon arrival, he finds a hiding spot near the main entrance, and proceeds to case the joint (some of this is speculation). As he watches the front door, which is flanked by two completely motionless guards, Simon witnesses a man slowly sneak out, walk in a straight line away from the building, and disappear off screen, all the while holding a, white, clucking chicken underneath his right arm…

Okay?

Then, this exact thing happens again, less than a minute later. Exactly the same thing. And then again. It happens AGAIN, SEVERAL TIMES. Why!?!? What the fuck is going on!?!? Are we supposed to understand this?!?! Is this a glitch in the Matrix?!? Is it a glitch in my own brain!?! Is Furious even a real movie!??!

Untitled-3Fuzzy, because the entire movie is.

So, having just Deja Vu’ed his ass off with the broad-daylight chicken bandit for a solid five minutes, Simon then proceeds to grappling hook his way into the building, where he witnesses even more chicken-related madness. Apparently, the bad guys in Furious are turning people into chickens. Why, I don’t know, but that’s what they’re doing, and in order to accomplish this, they have a wizard with a rad mustache blast their prisoners with fireballs, which, seemingly, transform his victims into chickens. I guess we’re supposed to see this and somehow connect it with the chicken related insanity we saw moments earlier, but please excuse me if I feel like this whole thing could warrant further explanation.

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A few scenes later, Simon ends up locked in a mystical Kung Fu battle with this mustachioed wizard man, and we learn that actually, he can just shoot chickens out of his fingertips, too. That’s just part of his fighting style, blasting chickens at people. So, then we’re forced to rethink the earlier scene; was he really turning people into chickens, or was he just shooting them with chickens, and when the chickens hit you, you disappear? Or maybe can he turn you into a chicken AND shoot chickens out of his fingers? Could be both? It’s unclear! Everything is unclear! What the hell is happening?!?! Seconds later, the wizard has one of this fireballs ricocheted at him, and he’s transformed into… a pig! Why a pig? Why not a chicken? Why anything?!  And these are the types of questions that Furious forces to you ask yourself, and if you want any kind of explanation, well… You can just fucking forget about it.

This is the experience that Furious provides, and these are but a few examples. The whole damn movie offers a most bountiful supply of nonsense, and how that makes you feel is really sort of up to you. I found myself more frustrated than anything else, but if you’re looking for a unique experience, then I submit Furious for your consideration. I hope it’s understood that this is in no way meant as an endorsement. Furious49

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Human Centipede II!

Human Centipede II: Full Sequence~ 2011, Tom Six, USA, The Netherlands

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Human Centipede II had some big, gross shoes to fill. It’s predecessor, Human Centipede: First Sequence had enjoyed an unexpected level of success. For the sequel, writer/director Tom Six has the intimidating task of trying to out do his wildly popular film, and he mostly fails.

On some levels, this film is incredibly daring, and at least a little bit brilliant. By far, the greatest thing about this film is how outside the box it is as a sequel; in Human Centipede II, the preceding film is only a movie. In other words, the two do not take place in the same fictional universe. Therefore, the implication is that while the first film was only a movie,  this second installment takes place in the real world… Like, where you and I live. Well, where you live. This is a very abstract way to follow up a popular film, possibly borrowing from Wes Craven’s New Nightmare a little bit, but unlike New Nightmare, Human Centipede II is incredibly stylized, looking more like Eraserhead than the Human Centipede. The statement that “This is reality, and it’s infinitely more bleak and unnerving than fiction” is well captured, and in reality, this is the only thing about Human Centipede II that I really enjoyed. This concept is not limited only to the visual aesthetic, in fact every aspect of the film’s presentation is fuming with dark, nihilistic grief, filth, and misery, like the key party Edgar Allan Poe, Aleister Crowley and the dead members of Mayhem are probably throwing in Nifelheim right now. Human Centipede II is the ugliest movie I’ve ever seen, in every way. Our central character, Martin (somehow both protagonist and antagonist), is a squat, bug eyed mute who we are told is “retarded,” and is also obsessed with Human Centipede. He’s deeply motivated to create his own Human Centipede in real life, and that’s just what he does, much more successfully than the first film’s mad doctor, none the less. And he’s no highly functional smooth criminal, Martin is a bumbling piece of trash that does a terrible job every step of the way, but it doesn’t matter because he almost never comes up against any form of resistance. Almost anyone should have been able to put a swift end to his filthy machinations with little to no effort, but no one ever does. Martin is like some kind of cartoon sloth who is somehow able to carry out the most brutal atrocities known to Dutch culture, but couldn’t successfully purchase a pair of shoes if his life depended on it. It’s like the movie wants us all to know that horrible, terrible things are completely inevitable, and that every aspect of existence is hideous and dirty. Well, that’s what I got out of the film, at least.

I’m not sure that it’s fair to say that Human Centipede II is a bad movie just because it’s unpleasant to watch, but luckily that battle can be fought another day because the film suffers from enough unrelated detriments to render that discussion relatively unimportant. It’s clear that Six’s real intention here was to out do himself on shock value above all else, and to do this he mostly just makes the movie as gross as possible. Human Centipede II is poopier, rape-ier, pervier, and gorier than it’s predecessor by a long shot… And it’s just terrible. It just doesn’t add to the enjoyability of the film in any way, shape, or form, in fact, it’s a massive blow to the integrity of the piece. It’s beyond cheapened, and the filth doesn’t even feel artfully presented, it’s just gross for gross’ sake, and that’s all. Tom Six wanted to outdo himself. He wanted anyone who watched Human Centipede and shrugged it off as “not that hardcore” to quiver in shock at the terrible production he hath wrought. Well, we’ve seen it now, Mr. Six, and yeah, that was horrendously unpleasant. What of it?

There are lots of films out there right now pushing the bar for shock value, and some of them don’t actually suck. Why not watch them instead? Human Centipede II is a trip you really don’t need to take, so I would recommend that it be avoided.

According to IMDB, the third Human Centipede film has completed production. Hooray.

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