Sins of the Fleshapoids

In order to judge a campy film, you have to use an entirely different rubric than to judge something more... high-budget. It is obvious which genre this film falls into, and if you're using the right rubric, it's hilarity all around! This movie has everything: CHEAP sets, props, and costumes; garish colors; weird music; hilarious actors; a ridiculous plot, and finally, dialog that is only enhanced in campiness by actually being WRITTEN onto the film itself, rather than spoken.

My only complaint really concerns just one scene, near the end of the movie, that seems to go on forever, along with really repetitive noises. But, I have a "thing" about repetitive noises, and it probably bothered me more than most. So if I can get past it, I bet you could, too! Anyway... this is possibly the most low-budget film I've ever seen. I am even taking into account Pink Flamingos (John Waters is my favorite director, if that gives you some insight as to how I judge movies), the budget of which was a mere $300.

The bottom line is, if you aren't already a big fan of campy movies, then you're going to think this is just a bad movie- a really, really bad movie. But if you ARE such fan, I think you'll appreciate it- very, very much.

'Sins of the Fleshapoids' is the first film Mike Kuchar, little lesser known twin brother of George Kuchar, directed himself. The film tells a story set about million years in the future where people have become lazy and selfish, so they have human like robot salves to serve them, who are called Fleshapoids. Two androids develop feelings towards each other.

'Sins of the Fleshapoids' is deliberately campy and sleazy that was produced on minimal budget. The film became quite a success of midnight movies. 'Sins of the Fleshapoids' (along with other Mike Kuchar film 'The Craven Sluck') became a mayor influence on John Waters' films.

My first of Mike Kuchar. The "other" Kucahr.

This is very interesting but it kinda makes me sad when this apparently is his most popular film. There is something here but I felt like this could go another go in the editing room/just script though I love the vision.

In general, it hits my favorite kind of underground film, when the director had a great flat and everything is just colorful set pieces where the character jump over but there is a lot of problems here. This definitely could have ended a few short minutes ahead. It goes into this weird place it just goes on and on without really changing anything in terms of pace or tension AND it could have been eliminated.

Not my cup of tea.

The theme that recurs throughout "Fleshapoids" is Howard Hanson's Second Symphony ("Romantic"). And yes, it's the same music used in "Alien." This film is a brilliant amalgamation of cinema rhetoric, fairy tale, pop art and cartoon. The typical Hollywood "love" scene, for example, is distorted way beyond familiarity. I can't think of any film that has such wonderful art direction on such a modest budget (Kuchar used his own crayon drawings, plastic fruit from Woolworth's, murals made with interior paint, etc.). As with many films from the Kuchar brothers, it's the original blend of music, voice-over and image that stuns you, leaving you either in tears of laughter.

A million years in the future, the few survivors of a nuclear holocaust lounge decadently amid plastic fruit, eating Clark bars and Wise-brand potato chips while being waited on by flesh-covered electronic slaves, the titular 'fleshapoids'. Mike Kuchar's amateurish satirical underground film will only be of interest to non-film students as novelty-item - a throwback to the 1960's often overrated 'counterculture-movement'. The 16mm production features crayon drawings for backgrounds, 'word bubbles' instead of dialogue, and too little story for even its brief 45 minute running time. A parody of the 'robots discovering their humanity' trope, there is little particularly unique, clever, or innovative in the film and the payoff - the scene with the fleshapoids 'making love' and the consequence of their illicit passion is barely worth sitting through the first half-hour. The soundtrack is an experimentalist mix of atonal musical-noise and neo-classical (Howard Hanson's "Symphony No. 2, Romantic") - annoying or diverting, depending on tastes. Barley watchable, even when judged for what it is.