Spider One of Powerman 5000 writes and directs a pretentious meditation on art and monsters. I actually hate myself for writing that sentence. I feel gross. Anyways, an opening quote from Vincent Van Gogh (his final one) lets ya know you’ve entered a high-schooler’s idea of edgy. The appearance of John Ennis and some short and sweet opening credits offer some hope. But then things start and you fall into what could kindly be described as well-produced off-off-Broadway garbage. Ennis is an angry theater director forcing his students to “show me the monster”. One girl obliges and transforms into something awful. A moody painter is having trouble finishing his latest piece, which is making his client antsy. He has an existential crisis because of his “art” which leads to immense stomach (?) pain and the appearance of visions involving some Creepshow-reject slicing open the artist’s throat. The horrific thing also inspires great art so whatever. A wiener writing a horror screenplay about a slasher called “The Whistler” deals with his angry inner critic in the form of the killer he created. It gets violent. A date between an awkward guy and an outgoing young woman heads back to the man’s house. They chat, drink wine and get to know each other. She’s a sculptor and she shows him some Polaroids of her admittedly disturbing sculptures. Discussions on the actual meaning of “art” and a chaotic intensity slowly seeping into the conversation eventually leads to the only conclusion it could. Thirty minutes into the film and we finally get a solid outing featuring two likable characters. A crying slasher in an ugly-ass baby mask is the focal point of a slasher film being watched by two chickadees who disagree over the film’s merits. One of the women (the one who dug the movie) is in a band and following a rehearsal they talk about the emotional importance of music.
One idiot is looking into a sequence of notes that can manifest evil. This ties into that first story because the girl’s friend is the one who transformed on stage and her asshole boyfriend was that unlikable artist who encountered that Creepshow antagonist. Six notes later and I’m sure you have already figured out where this is going. If you’re really into dialogue that makes you want to punch people, boy oh boy is this the film for you. There’s a bunch of unlikable people (none of them are bad actors) and minimal surprises. It’s easy on the eyes and they’re all trying so I’m not angry at it. There’s even a couple memorable images to make it feel like you didn’t completely waste your time. Love the poster.
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