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.
Continue reading 366 UNDERGROUND: YOUR LIFE IS ON THE LINE! A JOE CHRIST ANTHOLOGY, VOL. 1