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DIRECTED BY: John Roecker
FEATURING: Voices of Billie Joe Armstrong, Tim Armstrong, Theo Kogan, Kelly Osbourne, Davey Havok, Asia Argento, John Doe, Jane Wiedlin
PLOT: A denizen of a future, post-apocalyptic landscape discovers an account of a narcissistic cult leader and his murderous spree in Hollywood in the latter half of the 20th century.
COMMENTS: A line of defense of bad comedians is to complain when they get called on the carpet for telling offensive jokes that punch down. “Don’t be so offended,” they love to say. So it’s not an auspicious start for Live Freaky! Die Freaky! to kick off with a title card that warns us, “Rated X, not for the easily offended.” It’s a litmus test. If you’re in any way put off by what follows, you have no one to blame but your own uncool bleeding heart. Because giving offense is very much the order of the day.
Make no mistake, writer-director Roecker wants so very badly to shock you with his profane irreverence. Live Freaky! is a bouillabaisse of slanderous characterizations, insulting stereotypes, cheeky musical numbers, and puppet gore. It’s a parade of sub-“Davey and Goliath” animations naughtily saying the dirtiest things they can think of, and then winding up covered in blood. Everyone fails every possible variation of the Bechdel test because everyone endlessly boasts about their depraved sex practices (and one character indulges himself even after death). The meet-cute between the film’s lunatic messiah and one of his aspiring acolytes is a lengthy scene of explicit stop-motion doll sex while singing a jaunty music hall tune. It’s the creation of someone who saw Team America and concluded that the way to make that film’s notorious sex scene funnier would be to just do more of it.
I suppose Live Freaky! is a bold example of not really caring about anything at all. From the moment we see a live-action post-apocalypse vagrant unearth an old copy of Healter Skelter (sic), we’re launched into a looking-glass version of the Charles Manson story where the inexplicably charismatic miscreant may be bad, but at least he’s a man of the people. His victims are portrayed as even worse: drug-addled, sex-obsessed, vulgar and dismissive of anyone who isn’t rich or famous like they are. Oh, wait. I’m sorry. Did I say Charles Manson? Of course I meant Charles Hanson. Absolutely nothing to do with that other fellow. In fact, you can tell that the filmmakers have done their due diligence removing any trace of the Manson family’s rampage, because while the names may all seem familiar, they’ve cleverly replaced every first initial with an H. Yep, this story is about Sharon Hate and her friends Hay and Habigail. Totally different. You can’t possibly sue them. It’s all 3-D chess with these guys.
The movie openly embraces a punk aesthetic, which is presumably why the voice cast is comprised of several major figures from the punk rock scene, led by Green Day front man Billie Joe Armstrong essaying Charlie through what feels like a Redd Foxx impression. He’s joined by Tim Armstrong (no relation) from Rancid, John Doe of X, plus friends from Good Charlotte, AFI, Blink-182, Tiger Army, White Zombie, Lunachicks, and the Transplants. (Also Jane Wiedlin of The Go-Go’s, which is just depressing.) And then they hand this collection of punk all-stars a series of lame songs without an ounce of punk in them. And aside from their punk bonafides, the other thing cast all have in common is that none of them can act. Every line is delivered as if it was the only take of a script received five minutes before recording. The closest thing we have to a professional actor, Ozzy Osbourne’s daughter Kelly, plays her grotesquely vain socialite with the same snooty, over-enunciated whine throughout. The best analogy for the cast I can think of is a bunch of friends who come over to help you move. Everyone’s there to lend a hand, but they’re really just there for the pizza.
This kind of thing is tolerable in a show like, say, South Park because the creators are such committed libertarians. Yes, they’re bomb-throwers, but their targets are usually the high and mighty, the terminally humorless, and blinkered illogicians. There’s a brief glimmer of satire in Live Freaky! in a 20-second scene where the prosecuting attorney bemoans the degeneracy of Charlie and his crew, and then celebrates all the money he’s going to make off the book he’s writing about the case. But that’s it. Who is the movie really out to take down? Hollywood, maybe, although not any Hollywood that bears relation to life as lived by actual human beings. The rich? They’re not so much worse than the murderous, dumpster-diving poor. No, there’s no real target here, except the audience. Basically, the filmmakers are just hoping someone will take offense. They want the glory of having ruined someone else’s day. Well, mission accomplished.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
(This movie was nominated for review by Sam, who called it “Pretty terrible, but incredibly weird!” Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)
- Factory sealed DVD
