You have to feel sympathy for the poor microbudget filmmaker. There is almost nothing they can do that the Hollywood filmmaker cannot do better. The easiest option to stand out is to give viewers something that Hollywood can’t. This could be a non-clichéd storyline or avant-garde aesthetics; but those paths require hard work and talent. There is one fairly easy avenue to notoriety open to anyone brave and shameless enough to take it: show the audience something taboo. This path probably won’t get you rich, but it may at least get you noticed.

John Waters has repeatedly said, “It’s easy to be shocking. It is much harder to be witty at the same time.” Generations of underground filmmakers have been proving that adage true ever since Pink Flamingos spat in America’s face with its vision of smug, gleefully villainous drag queen coprophagia. Waters’ outcasts and gays weren’t sissies to be kicked around: they were powerful, they would cut you. And they would make you laugh, often against your better judgement. But ever since Waters blazed the path, punks, outsiders, and weirdos everywhere have spat out their own attempts at scandalizing the bourgeois, aping Waters’ shocks despite not possessing his wit or purpose, to diminishing returns. Few returns are as diminished as the 1980s-90s direct-to-VHS atrocities of one Joe Christ, punk musician turned garbage auteur. Now, VHS and early DVD revivalists Saturn’s Core have shoveled the collected refuse of Christ’s movie attempts from 1988-1995—God forbid, there’s a volume 2 coming!— into a trash bin of a Blu-ray. Here are the 5 short films included:

“Communion in Room 410” (1988): Joe literally cuts a woman with a razor on the arm and breasts, then he and another woman drink the blood. They also eat Wonder bread dipped in blood in mockery of communion. Joe’s irritating, badly recorded music plays in the background. This goes on for 20 minutes, with all the artistry of “2 Girls, 1 Cup.” Hard to watch; I suggest not watching it.

“Speed Freaks with Guns” (1991): Joe delivers a paranoid, methed-up monologue, then shows some home videos of him and 2 female cronies murdering random women, then steals a car and leaves New York. This mess does contain one interesting scene: a priest randomly pukes communion wafers on Joe as he passes by. It’s the one of a very few attempts at humor on the entire disc. It’s also, revealingly, the only scene where Christ depicts himself as a victim rather than the bully.

“Crippled”: A paralyzed woman is cruelly abused by her caretakers. This is actually a surprisingly trenchant critique of… naw, just kidding, it’s more crap.

“Acid is Groovy Kill the Pigs”: A meth addict buys acid because his dealer has no meth, eats the entire blotter, then goes on a killing spree and interviews the numerous other acid-chewing serial killers he knows. The “pigs” of the title aren’t cops; they’re everyone who isn’t a serial killer themselves. The only halfway good scene is death by puppy, another rare attempt at comedy. “Acid” shows improvement over the last 3 Christ films, in little details like title cards and music that’s properly recorded, but it’s still the cinematic equivalent of soap scum you find clinging to the grout in your shower.

“Sex Blood and Mutilation”: This one is actually a documentary, on body piercing and voluntary mutilation. Christ introduces it while dressed as a priest and holding a chihuahua. Subjects include punk/noise musician Genesis P-Orridge, of whose penile and scrotal piercings we see far too much; a porn director whose dominatrix girlfriend pierces him with needles; a tattooed man who drives a nail through his tongue; and a guy who’s voluntarily had his penis removed. The last one should generate more than a little skepticism, as no responsible professional would ever perform such elective surgery, and the commentary is delivered in altered voiceover. The man’s claim that he now has 5 orgasms a day after removing his organ laughable. (My guess is that the footage is either of someone who lost his penis to cancer, or someone in the process of sex-reassignment surgery, and the narration was made up.) Christ claims that all these self-mutilation enthusiasts are more than just freakshows, but never offers, or elicits, much insight as to why they do what they do. For the documentary’s finale, Christ stuffs his dog in a sack and swings it against the wall repeatedly (faked, but it’s a convincing trick). This stunt is entirely unrelated to his movie’s supposed theme and reveals the insincerity of his “this is not a freakshow” argument. Still, regardless of its many flaws, this is by far Christ’s best work from the first half of his career. Avoid it like a nail through the tongue.

Special features in the Saturn’s Core set include a booklet with oddly appreciative essays praising of Christ, a similar visual essay, footage from an uncompleted “Sex Blood and Mutilation” sequel, trailers and TV ads for Christ’s by-mail video enterprise, and audio commentaries from the director (which I confess I didn’t listen to, as that would have involved seeing the films twice).

Most transgressive underground films of the post-Waters era commit the same cardinal sin: they’re boring. When you expect to be disgusted at every turn, the director can’t surprise you by making his next scene disgusting. With no meaningful plot or provocative thought to break the monotony, that drug addict slaughtering his fourth or fifth nude female victim gets old fast. There is marginal value in shock-for-shock’s-sake art. Its mere existence challenges the status quo. Acknowledging that slight social value doesn’t mean you have a duty to subject yourself to it.