Vulgar

by Dane Youssef

Bryan Johnson shows amazing talent and depth as a first-time greenhorn filmmaker. There's more than just one worthwhile film here. There's two.

"Vulgar" plays out like a scrappy, slapped-together little campy comedy and then shifts wildly into much darker territory. And then back again. And back...

Johnson seems to have a natural wild indie touch and while it has touches of some of the darkest nature ever uncovered on the screen, it also has some nice Jersey-blue collar comedy.

Now here's a movie Tarantino would enjoy. It's kinda like a soup. It plays out like a stew of movies, styles and ideas. European avant-garde cinema, indie film and campy, low-budget comedy. It's a shame this movie didn't play in Europe and France. Or college kids. This is the kind of thing they all gobble up.

I'm glad I bought a copy. It gives me hope as an aspiring filmmaker... and joy and thrills as a movie-lover who loves off-kilter stuff.

Brian O' Halloran is touchingly determined and vulnerable as the clown. He scrapes out a meager existence as a "party whore" and lives in his hovel of a home, living on s**t-wages, barely making ends meet. His landlord is understanding and sympathetic and lets him "mow the lawn or do some maintenance" and knocks off a few.

Ethan Suplee and Matt Mawer are effective and creepy as his inbred and mentally-retarded sons who seem to have been phoned right out of "Deliverence."

Jerry Lewkowitz is just plain frightening and disturbing as Ed Fanelli. With his portly beer-belly, bug-eyes, raspy voice and bad wig that looks like a little boy's hair. I heard that the inspiration for this character was Dennis Hopper in "Blue Velvet," one of the scariest villains (or any kind of characters) to pop up on any kind of cinema in history.

The rape sequence with Will is just horrifying. It outdoes the whole scene in "Blue Velvet" and literally makes you BELIEVE and FEEL what this poor guy who just wants to entertain little kids is feeling.

The morning after where he has his emotional breakdown is just as strong. Will confides in Syd about the whole evening and Syd begs him to go to the cops, but Will swears him to secrecy. These scenes all shows strength, talent and feeling with both O' Halloran's acting and Johnson's directing.

Johnson himself, like Tarantino and producer Kevin Smith, once jockeyed in a video store. He gives the movie the flavor of a lot of low-budget films and masters past. He gives some "Kevin Smith" flavor in the dialouge and the juice of other great filmmakers', but he also gives it his own signature style. You'd have to see it to know what I mean.

Johnson has never been within 200 miles of a film school, so he seems to have gotten all of whatever film education and knowledge from Smith and Mosier.

You can tell Johnson is emulating Smith as a filmmaker, like the film's dialouge has an overwritten, over-articulate Kevin Smith-ness to it. Not to mention Smith's one-shot camera set-up. Still, there are moments that generate pain beyond words and conversation that Smith has never shown us.

And anyway, this is NOT a Kevin Smith film. I love the man, but this is another cup of tea altogether. Many will see because of the "Kevin Smith" name on the marquee. Which means they;ll be in for some serious shock and disappointment.

Johnson's only real mistake, in my opinion (and this is one that hurts the movie more than anything else) is his decision to act in it as the clown's only friend. You see why Smith only gave him bit-parts as Steve-Dave. He's no actor. He tends to mumble a lot of the time.

Look, read the other "user reviews" on IMDb about Johnson's "Vulgar." Listen to them describe it. YOU know if it's the movie for you. It all depends on your taste. Go to the site's OFFICIAL WEB PAGE and read the interview with Johnson. After hearing him, does it sound like your type of movie?

All in all, this is a hell of a debut. I liked Johnson's different stories and juggling them all at once. Comedy, drama, horror, working-class stories...

And at the center of it all, View Askew's poster boy--Flappy the Clown.

Have you ever wondered the real story about that clown? Here it is...

Don't see this because Kevin Smith produced it. See it because this is your taste. Read the reviews. Does this sound like your brand of poison? You know who you are.

SPECIAL NOTE: Jerry Lewkowitz deserves particularly special acclaim. Speaking as someone who has seen far more than his share of movies, Lewkowitz is the most frightening villain I've ever seen.

And as Ed Fanelli, he should be placed next to Michael Rooker in "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer" and Charlize Theron in "Monster." His role as the horrifying Ed Fanelli will stay with you to the grave...

--A Vulgar Movie Fan, Dane Youssef

Will Carlson is a birthday clown who is having some troubles. He can't pay the rent, his mom hates him, and everybody gives him a difficult time. He gets the idea of being an adult entertainer party clown. On his first job he is tortured and raped by an insane father and his two sons. He is too embarrassed to call the authorities, so he keeps the entire incident a secret. Some time later, he saves the life of a little girl who is held hostage by her father and becomes famous and gets his own show. Finally, his dream has come true. He gets a call from the family of rapists who had videotaped his performance and tell him to give them a share of his money. He does, but then they also want a repeat reenactment of that fateful night or they will leak the tape to the press. This film doesn't try to be special. It isn't stylized, or done artfully or tastefully. It can be considered many things, but one thing the film can't be criticized for is being pretentious. This is, to put it properly, an old-school exploitation grindhouse style picture. This film is very effective and quite shocking. It certainly is not a film for everybody. It is a hell of an experience. The film is ugly, rough, grainy, and dimly lit. The acting is very intense and the characters are often quite abrasive. The plot of the film is quite realistic to an extent. The rape scenes are pretty horrific and brutal, some of the roughest I've seen in fact. The spends enough time getting us to sympathize and feel sorry for the character of Will Carlson. His roommate(Bryan Johnson, the director of VULGAR) is probably the best character in the film. Ethan Suplee and Matthew Maher are both pretty creepy as the two rapists, Jerry Lewkowitz is quite nasty as the father, and Brian O'Halloran gives a pretty strong performance. In fact, the only serious issue I had with this film is that it tries to be a comedy at times. Ultimately, the attempts at humor come off really poorly. The humor in this film feels out of place and is distracting at times when it shouldn't be. I guess I could call this a black comedy, but the film is actually really disturbing and difficult to watch. Maybe the comedy element was added to make the whole film seem even more wrong. As it is, it's a merciless film and is nasty. If you are a fan of exploitation you will probably love this film. For others, you could probably do with this film.

Pros: -very engaging and moving at times -decent acting -well established dark tone -intense -a guilty pleasure

Cons: -unneeded humor -graphic violence, rape, and sexual torture may be too much for a lot of viewers -bad marketing

When I first saw this movie I thought the same as many others, "oh wow it's View Askew it has to be funny!" Boy was I wrong... The beginning of the movie was amusing but it quickly turned dark and twisted. The plot line was intriguing and unique. The actors were wonderful, they portrayed their characters so well. No one else could have played Flappy the Clown, he was so realistic ^_^. The emotion in this movie was so raw and deep, you wanted to reach out and kill some of the characters. It was interesting and it held your attention the whole time, I rather enjoyed it, beyond the scariness. Very well done, the atmosphere, the characters, the plot line, all air tight and fantastic.

6 out of 10

Finally a movie that actually lives up to it's title. This is a film that cuts no corners and really doesn't particularly care if the viewer ends up liking it or not. In many ways the filmmakers seem to take a certain glee in just how disgusting and 'vulgar' they can make it. There is a different type of motivation here. It's a sort of assault on the viewers senses. It's a test at seeing just how much one person can take. It's crude and ugly all the way through. It's just one grotesque image or comment toppled onto another. Victory to these filmmakers seems to constitute how many viewers it can repulse. This seems especially evident on the DVD version where in the bonus section they proudly display all the rejection letters they have received from all the film festival organizations.

The story involves a hard on his luck guy who works as a clown for children's parties. He decides he needs some extra money so he decides to attend a adult party and pose as a male clown stripper, but it ends up all being a set up. Once he gets there he becomes accosted and eventually raped by three grown men.

The rape scene is actually not as disturbing as you might think. For one thing it is handled very well technically. It has some interesting camera angles and viewpoints. It also comes after so much other ugliness that by the time you get to this part it all seems very status quo. In fact the filmmakers become so obsessive in painting such a over the top tasteless and nihilistic portrait that eventually it all becomes darkly amusing. A good example of this is the protagonists mother who sits in a senior home and spews all every imaginable insult and put down that she can to her son. She seems so mean to her son, who otherwise seems like a nice guy, that at first you cringe at what she says. Eventually though she spews out so many that you just can't help but start to laugh.

There may actually be a message here somewhere. It may be saying that we live in a very mean and ugly world with no chance at defeating it or escaping it. Good guys and innocent people get raped by it all the time (Note how our protagonist is nothing more than an innocent children's clown.) You almost have to get ugly yourself in a way in order to deal with it because you can never really get beyond it. This is evident by the way our protagonist becomes rich and famous and yet his attackers just track him down and try to extort money from him by saying they have a videotape of the attack which they could send out and humiliate him with.

Overall this is a very cheap looking and grimy picture. It's excessively vile nature will be a test to just about any viewer. Yet it is well paced with a nicely compact structure. The dialogue is good and the three attackers are perfect enhancements to the mountain men in DELIVERANCE. If anything it has it's own vision. This is a viable candidate for future cult status.

This would have to be one of the more disturbing movies i've ever seen, but, i liked it. I mean of course I didn't like the raping sequences but the plot was pretty good, and it starred Dante from Clerks, and it has some funny lines in it. Yes, it's not my favorite movie, probably not top 50, but it was still pretty good. Not for children.