There are doubtless many people who are able to appreciate Freddy Got Fingered. I am not one of them.

The directorial debut of one Tom Green, the film is ostensibly the story of Gordy (played by Green), an aspiring cartoonist who evidently suffers from extremely poor impulse control and an almost pathological, even deliberate, lack of propriety.  He has made a life of irritating his evidently perpetually put-upon parents (Julie Hagerty and Rip Torn), who seem thrilled to finally get him out of the house as he embarks on a road trip to LA in hopes of starting a career as an animator. 

That sounds like the foundation of a not-particularly-original coming-of-age comedy, the goals of which Freddy Got Fingered intends (at least I think so) to entirely subvert by way of utterly random absurdist nonsense. This movie isn’t interested in telling a story, creating relatable or realistic characters or even hewing to any idea, conventional or un-,  of a comedic narrative. 

And that’s fine.

But I don’t have to like it.

Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t hate Freddy Got Fingered because of some hifalutin idea of what a comedy is “supposed” to be. It just so happens that Tom Green’s brand of humor is like kryptonite to me. 

Take an early scene in which Gordy comes across a roadkill deer on his way from Portland to LA. Next we’re treated to what felt like five or six excruciating minutes during which Gordy eviscerates the animal and wears its carcass. He dances around on the deserted pavement, shouting phrases like “Now I’m stinky!” and putting pieces of deer guts in his mouth. Again, I do not mean to suggest that this is objectively unfunny, merely that I found it supremely irritating. 

In another scene, Gordy, working in a cheese sandwich factory (OK, points for that one funny idea), just gets up on the conveyor belt and starts accosting the other workers, screaming at them, interrupting their work, and generally being a nuisance. If I had to work with this guy in real life I would gleefully beat him to death with a garden hose full of beebees. I would also film this act and present it as a groundbreaking form of anti-comedy.

I have no tolerance for this sort of bullshit, which I suspect is entirely the point. I suppose I am exactly the kind of person Green delights in exasperating, and I further suppose that my seething hatred for it would delight him even more, which in turn exacerbates my irrational rage.

There’s a subplot about Gordy’s romance with a wheelchair-bound woman (Marisa Coughlin), who apparently has no interest in Gordy beyond her desire to suck his cock. Okay, whatever. I’m not sure if this is meant to be merely another absurd detour in place of some boring, conventional story arc or if it’s just another goof, but either way who cares?

What about Gordy’s strained (to say the least) relationship with his father? Rip Torn does an admirable job depicting his completely justified disgust for his son. By the time the title’s meaning becomes clear (Gordy accuses his father of sexually assaulting his younger brother) it’s possible (though not necessarily likely) that I was meant to feel sad for these two men, so unable to reach each other despite the bonds of family, but mostly I rooted for Torn every time he took a swing at this awful piece of shit he conceived. 

Freddy Got Fingered transcends both humor and taste. If I attack it purely on the subjective basis of being unfunny, I sound like some grumpy old codger. If I attack its loose (to say the least) structure, I am somehow ignoring its deliberate attempts to sabotage any “normal” idea of comedy. In short, this is a lose-lose proposition. I can only emphatically state that I loathed every minute of this film. 

Quoth the Harlin: “I’m the last person to care about authenticity.”

That would be Renny Harlin, director of 1995’s pirate movie revival CUTTHROAT ISLAND, defending himself against allegations that he’d been blowing the budget on meticulously recreating period clothing down to the shoelace.

CUTTHROAT ISLAND is generally credited with sinking Carolco Pictures, a production company widely known for profligate overspending in the making of massive blockbuster action films of the 80s and 90s. TERMINATOR 2, TOTAL RECALL, BASIC INSTINCT, and the first three RAMBO films just to name some of the major highlights. Greenlit at $65 million but coming in at a reported $115 million, it was the nail in the coffin for the near-bankrupt Carolco and, according to some guy on Wikipedia, “significantly reduc[ed] the bankability of…pirate themed films,” which makes it sound like they were some kind of hot property pre-PIRATES OF THE CARRIBEAN (a franchise that still has pretty much a movie monopoly on pirates). 

Nothing cements a film’s public reputation as garbage quite so concretely as shitty box-office, which is why so many notorious flops tend to be prime candidates for future reassessment. Nobody saw CUTTHROAT ISLAND in 1995, making it all too easy for some idiot, 15-plus years later, to claim that it’s actually pretty good.

But that idiot would be mostly wrong.

CUTTHROAT ISLAND may be far from calamitously awful, but it certainly is bloated, overlong and dull. Packed with miscast actors and saddled with an aimless, expository script, it offers little but empty spectacle (which I admit it delivers, albeit perfunctorily).

A brief summary: Lady Pirate Captain Morgan Adams (Geena Davis, dating but not yet married to Harlin) vows to avenge the death of her father at the hands of her evil uncle Dawg (Frank Langella) and beat him to the buried treasure on the titular island. Trouble is, the map she needs to find it is split into three parts, one in Dawg’s possession. Needing someone to translate the map, written in Latin, she purchases an “educated” slave (with hidden plans of his own), William Shaw (Matthew Modine), and sets off to get filthy rich and have her revenge.

Pretty straightforward.

In fact, the skeleton of the plot is remarkably similar to that of the aforementioned first PIRATES OF THE CARRIBEAN film; vengeful, orphaned protagonist seeks vengeance and hidden riches while being pursued by the bad guys who wronged him. There’s a lot of fun to be had in comparing the two films, especially given their remarkably dissimilar public reception. Certainly there are major differences, specifically the Jack Sparrow character (America’s favorite narratively extraneous hero) and, more importantly, the supernatural elements of that franchise. 

Now in both CUTTHROAT and PIRATES, the threadbare narrative is just a clothesline to hang a few setpieces on. Go to this place, secure this object, have a swordfight, repeat. That would be acceptable if the bulk of the action sequences were actually exciting, but this is where the usually reliable Harlin fails. The fights are sluggish and rehearsed. I’m certain that real cutlasses were heavy enough to be useless without practice, but here you can almost feel the actors counting out the choreography in their heads. “One, two, parry, step.” Even Modine, supposedly and experienced fencer, is adrift. 

What’s more, PIRATES greatly benefits from that vaunted Jerry Bruckheimer sheen. Granted, effects technology and an extra hundred million bucks or so can do a lot for any production, but CUTTHROAT resembles nothing so much as one of those muddy, workmanlike Salkind productions* like CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS: THE DISCOVERY. One pines for the anarchic physicality of Richard Lester’s swashbuckling MUSKETEERS films, not to mention his eye for casting.

Which brings me to another major contributor to CUTTHROAT ISLAND’s failure: the cast. Harlin was convinced that this film would make his ladyfriend Davis an action heroine, but here she’s completely unable to shake off her roots as a film comedienne, flopping around like a gangly muppet and delivering buccaneer’s threats like the drive-thru attendant asking you if you want to super size that. Here’s a particular favorite bit of mealy-mouthed nonsense: “Because I am so charitable, I will maroon you on a rock the size of this table, instead of splattering your brains across my bulkhead…as you deserve.” Now imagine that read to you by a high-school freshman drama student from Massachusetts. There you go.

Frankly it’s surprising that Davis seems so completely incapable and non-threatening given her work in Harlin’s next picture, THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT, in which she starred as a government assassin. Although that film boasted a much better script by Shane Black.

Modine doesn’t fare much better. He seems to have been chosen for his occasional resemblance (especially when mustachioed) to Errol Flynn (his films being an obvious touchstone here). But he’s more rodent-like than anything, putting on a crummy, erratic British accent. He’d pass for Flynn maybe at a Halloween party, or in a made-for-TV biopic of Olivia De Havilland. His physical presence is marginalized even further by Harlin’s insistence on making his character the brains of the outfit, leaving him to spout stupid lines like “I wish I’d never learned Latin” while everybody else gets to, you know, actually do stuff.

That these two rag dolls are pointlessly forced by the screenplay to engage in a couple of cutesy love scenes is an avenue best left unexplored, except to say that Roger Moore’s oft-nauseating woo-pitching in his Bond entries is slightly more watchable.

Only villain Frank Langella seems to realize what movie he’s in, chewing up the scenery and seeming genuinely psychotic as the ruthless but moronically named Uncle Dawg. He does a lot of yelling and stomping around and random keelhauling of his own crew to make the part memorable. But despite being the villain of the piece, Langella receives maybe 20 minutes of screen time total. It’s as if the film is afraid to really cut loose and give us the violent spectacle it keeps promising.

In fact, CUTTHROAT ISLAND would have benefited nicely from Harlin’s marked glee in often tastelessly graphic violence. His “best” films absolutely revel in bloodshed, yet there’s nothing here as lovingly nasty as the infamous icicle eye-gouge in DIE HARD 2 or as sickly thrilling as (my personal favorite) the stalactite bench-press impalement in CLIFFHANGER.

All of this snowballs together to paint a picture of a film that’s almost aggressively second-rate. Where did that $115 million go? It’s certainly not up on the screen. Reportedly, last minute rewrites, the eleventh-hour dropout of Michael Douglas (who had a huge pay-or-play deal for Modine’s role), and the rebuilding of most of the sets contributed to the mounting budget. And yet in a few cases the film’s sloppy, cheap vibe seems almost pleasantly quaint. Set walls wobble when collided with. Exteriors aren’t expanded with CGI or teeming with extras (real or digital). The blue skies aren’t laden with ominous storm clouds or phony computer-generated sunsets. One of the best things about mid-90’s action films like this, whether they work or not, is that they are some of the last examples of huge-budget spectacle done practically, with a relative minimum of then-still-new digital technology. It’s nice to see real stunts with stuntment, real boats on real water getting blown to shreds with real explosives. I miss those days.

I was lucky enough to get a White Elephant assignment that was given a very fine Blu-Ray release; I imagine that most other entries won’t come with that luxury. But the HD transfer uncovers as much as it makes up for. For every nicely framed shot or dynamic bit of movement, there’s an obvious painted backdrop or crummy blue-screen composite. But I only mention such things because they are a pet obsession of mine

CUTTHROAT ISLAND is a film that, were it made today, would probably be viewed as an empty knockoff of a successful franchise. Frankly it’s surprising that PIRATES is still the only peglegged game in town, given its success. CUTTHROAT’s hardly due for rediscovery or something akin to the truly weird and inventive but stupid LAST ACTION HERO, but nor is it the unmitigated disaster history has labelled it. It’s mostly just forgettably mediocre, and in that way its legacy has noticeably outlasted its reputation. It has much more in common with the bloated, expensive, turgid epics cranked out by the studios like clockwork to this day. PRINCE OF PERSIA, CLASH OF THE TITANS or THE A-TEAM aren’t entirely dissimilar.

One last thing: Carolco greenlit this monster after balking at the ever-increasing budget for Paul Verhoeven’s CRUSADE, which sadly was never filmed. Verhoeven moved on to his own (also never launched) pirate film MISTRESS OF THE SEAS, which Geena Davis wanted to star in instead of CUTTHROAT, to which she was unfortunately contractually obligated. MISTRESS sounds like something close to Verhoeven’s FLESH + BLOOD, but with pirates, which leads me to imagine a film that’s better and wilder and meatier than just about any other that I’ve referenced in this post. 

* I briefly considered using the phrase “That Salkind Feeling” but decided against it. You’re welcome.

A is for ALIEN

B is for BAD BOYS 2

C is for COME DRINK WITH ME

D is for demonlover

E is for THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK

F is for FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE

G is for GRINDHOUSE

H is for HICKEY AND BOGGS

I is for IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE

J is for JOE VS THE VOLCANO

K is for KWAIDAN

L is for LETHAL WEAPON

M is for MIAMI VICE

N is for NEAR DARK

O is for OUT OF SIGHT

P is for PULP FICTION

Q is for QUAI DES ORFEVRES

R is for REVENGE

S is for SENSO

T is for THREE KINGS

U is for UGETSU

V is for VANISHING POINT

W is for WHEN A WOMAN ASCENDS THE STAIRS

X is for X: THE MAN WITH THE X-RAY EYES

Y is for YI YI

Z is for ZARDOZ

Like a lot of followers of exploitation cinema, I got my start getting stoned in my dorm, watching shitty horror movies with my friends. I can, therefore, remember my first viewing of “Pieces,” how the VHS box beckoned to me, with it’s pulpy tag-line promise, “It’s exactly what you think it is!” 

It was 1996, and the idea of packing a rep theater with “Troll 2” or an amateur cult item like “Birdemic: Shock and Terror” was in my mind unthinkable. “Pieces,” a shitty slasher film, forgotten, relegated to the dustbin of Mike’s Video’s 52-cent-a-night horror section, was an irresistible catch. Likely to be seen by me and my friends alone. We had no idea that Bittorrent and DVD and boutique video labels would make even our most obscure desires a reality. We felt then that we were exploring something forgotten, something that would reveal its secret artistry, discernible to us only.

But in this case no such thing existed.

“Pieces” or “Mil Gritos Tiene la Noche” (“The Night has a Thousand Cries”) is a low-budget 1982 Spanish knockoff of “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.” It is also awful, firmly in so-bad-it’s-good territory. It’s littered with cheap red-karo-syrup makeup effects, terrible dialogue, leaden “acting” and crummy dubbing, all in service of a truly nonsensical story. The only entertainment value to be found is, indeed, in laughing hysterically at how inept and silly the whole thing is.

A little boy clandestinely assembles a jigsaw puzzle of a naked babe when he’s interrupted by his obviously insane mother, who immediately threatens to burn all of the boy’s belongings. Before she can get started, he puts an axe blade between her eyeballs. Believing the murder to be a random killing, the cops send the boy away with relatives.

Cut to “FORTY YEARS LATER” (or “ORTY YEARS” as the title card on the old poorly cropped VHS copy used to read). The now grown boy’s murderous urges are reignited when he sees a lovely young coed accidentally skateboard through a plate glass mirror. Our mysterious killer sets about a literal chainsaw massacre, slicing up sexually promiscuous aerobics instructors or the occasional topless swimmer.

Meanwhile the crimes are investigated by the utterly clueless trio of a smarmy police detective (Christopher George), an easily-frightened teacher (Lynda Day) and a dopey student who fancies himself an amateur crimesolver (Ian Sera). The prime suspect, at least at the outset, is unsurprisingly the campus groundstender, Groundskeeper Willard, a burly bearded man (played by Paul Smith, who portrayed The Beast Rabban in Lynch’s “Dune”. Presumably he is not Scottish, though) who is frequently seen cooing over his chainsaw and claiming that he has “work to do.”

The investigation proceeds accordingly. The Dean claims that the University administration wants to cover up the crimes and avoid bad publicity, though it’s never stated just how they plan to hide a chainsaw-wielding serial killer on a bustling college campus, but I think it has to do with the crusty Dean not wanting some pesky cops running around “spying” on his students. Further, he murderer proves to be weirdly efficient, at one point subduing a swimming girl with a pool net and chainsawing her into parts only after she’s unconscious. There’s an unintentional running gag wherein there are always loud noises or lots of background commotion happening whenever the killer strikes, explaining why nobody seems to notice a buzzing chainsaw. At one point the lead detective asks for a student’s thoughts on a murder scene, saying “I don’t want to wait for the coroner’s opinion.”

I haven’t even mentioned the inexplicable scene in which our characters are confronted by an angry martial artist. I’m lead to believe that the producers of the film had this actor/fighter under contract, and decided to unceremoniously slip him into the film for no clear reason.

But that’s enough plot summary. The point is that “Pieces,” as much as I wished it to be otherwise, is a shockingly inept piece of exploitation cinema. At best it’s good for a few chuckles, aided of course by your substance of choice, but at worst (which is obviously most of the time) it’s a cynical cash in. Even the tagline, “You don’t have to go to Texas for a Chainsaw Massacre,” is just name-dropping. The best grindhouse movies have a beating heart, a love of genre, or even just a couple of good ideas.

Of course, it’s folly to expect a film like this to not be in the business of making a quick and dirty buck, but did it have to be so dispassionate? Even the silliest Italian horror films tend have a deluded auteur at the helm to claim some sort of thematic coherence or hidden agenda: just look at the director of “Troll 2” and the unsung hero of recent roadshow hit “Best Worst Movie,” Claudio Fragasso. Claudio has made one of the most inexplicably popular terrible films of all time, yet he sticks to his guns and insists he knew what he was doing. He maybe completely out of his mind, but at least he fucking means it.

And in a way that’s the sort of sincerity a movie like “Pieces” sorely lacks. Nobody was dying to get this film out of their system. I had hopes that revisiting a work like this, something I once found charmingly goofy, would reveal to me what I initially fell in love with in exploitation cinema, what the seeds of my obsession were. Instead I found something completely charmless. I don’t really believe in the “so bad it’s good” movie any more, because if the only thing you can do with a film is laugh at it, what’s the point?

Here’s a bunch of “Pieces” related ephemera.

The Kung-fu scene from “Pieces”

Paul L. Smith, who plays Groundstender Groundskeeper Willard. I think he looks like the bastard son of Merlin Olsen and Jack Elam.

Coming this Tuesday, 6/15

I had the audio from this clip as the outgoing message on my answering machine in college. The message also included the line immediately following, lead actor Christopher George shouting “He cut that poor girl in half while she was still alive!” 

US VHS box art

US poster