When Nature Calls

Are you seriously trying to tell me that there are people in this world that like this movie? I find that all but impossible to fathom. I've seen low-budget films with lasting value that far surpassed that of major studio productions. I've watched Asylum flicks that were surprisingly good. Camp and kitsch have their place in cinema, and I adore the utmost deliberate trash of John Waters, a man I'd unflinchingly name alongside David Lynch and Kurosawa Akira as one of my favorite filmmakers. With even just a modicum of wit attached, spoofs, parodies, satires, farces, and the most outrageous, outwardly random, and nonsensical of comedy can be tremendously funny. 'When nature calls,' unfortunately, cannot be described with any such verbiage. This is one of the worst things I've ever watched.

In unpredictably irregular, hopelessly scattered, and uniformly fleeting instances, there are little tidbits that demonstrate a sliver of cleverness. Sadly, with a single exception these are insufficient to earn a laugh - or with a single exception, even just a smile - for filmmaker Charles Kaufman and most everyone else involved lacked the skill and intelligence to fashion even the best of ideas into something thoughtful and cogent. It's a minor pleasure to see Gates MacFadden here, for example, and not least as she gets to exercise her craft as a choreographer, but she's present only for a throwaway skit that's intended for other purposes in the first place. That's pretty much the way it goes for any would-be joke that comes closest to evoking a response: a glimmer of wit is momentarily discerned, but gone just as quickly, or utilized poorly, and otherwise surrounded by too much balderdash to count for anything. And gosh golly, there's a lot of balderdash here.

I don't even mean writing that has aged poorly in the past forty years (e.g., racism, sexism, homophobia, fatphobia, and even a rape joke), though of course these are insufferable as well. Rather, there's a lot of these agonizingly long eighty-five minutes that are just cheap, common, simple-minded, juvenile, and/or puerile, including tiresome sex or anatomy jokes and scatological humor. There's a lot that Kaufman or someone else seemingly supposed was clever, but it really wasn't, except maybe for eight-year old children who shouldn't be watching a Troma feature to begin with; on the opposite end of the spectrum, there's some referential humor that is meaningless four decades later. There's far more that's pure randomness for its own sake, with no rhyme or reason to connect thoughts together, and somehow that randomness is intended to provide amusement. It doesn't. Have I mentioned sight gags which are so poorly visualized that the audience doesn't even have an opportunity to see what the picture intends?

With that latter point in mind I can't even say that 'When nature calls' is consistently well made, because the editing and cinematography sometimes leave something to be desired. I won't fault things like the sets, costume design, stunts, effects, or props for struggling with limited resources, but I will fault them for being approached carelessly. The sound and image quality is variable; sound effects and music are employed to ends as exhausting and as tawdry as anything else here. I guess we can say the cast give committed performances, but not all the acting is equal, and anyway I'm unsure why we should care about it when everything else is so rotten. And still we come back to the writing, and Kaufman's realization as director, because the vast preponderance of the humor fails spectacularly. Strictly speaking it's still true that I've seen worse titles, but not many. Whatever your impetus for watching, whatever it is you think you're going to get out of this, I must vehemently recommend finding anything else instead. 'When nature calls' is a dull, boorish dud, and it's simply not worth anyone's time.

When Nature Calls (1985) was a film made by Lloyd Kaufman's brother. He made several films for Team Troma during the late seventies and early eighties. This was one of his last films. According to him, he wanted to make movies until they didn't make a profit and it wasn't worth doing anymore. He said this during the production of Mother's Day. Several years later and a few more films under his belt he was still directing.

The movie begins with several fake trailers (Baby Bullets, Raging Bull#@%! "A Martin Snoreasy Production, and a film for blind people). The feature film is called The Outdoorsters. An all-American family with All-American problems. They decide to move out of the big city and live in the country. But the wildlife ain't all that it's cracked up to be. This crazy comedy is filled with numerous sight gags, dated humor and corny jokes. One of the best jokes in this film revolves around "Wee-Jun" from the Ka-o-pec-Tac tribe! (played by David Strathian).

A Troma production through and through. Too bad Charles Kaufman 'retired" from the movie business. He should have went one and made several more comedies. But he left us with Mother's Day, Ferocious Female Freedom Fighters to name a few.

Highly recommended.

Well, first of all, I really got a kick out of the trailer for the toddler-centric gangster action movie parody that precedes the feature here, "Baby Bullets" - especially with the tagline "The only movie that has to be changed four timed a day!"

(Matter of fact this opens kind of like.... Grindhouse? And it has an "Intermission" eventually? It has multiple fake trailers, including a sex arthouse take off called "Gena's Story" featuring the introduction of actor Jacques Perrier, and a ... *un-subtle* black and white spoof of Raging Bull by Martin Snoreseasy called Raging Bull****?!?! What a way to start your movie, dude... Dare I say this is "cinema?")

I bring all of this up because the trailers and to an extent the Intermission are really, comedically, the most effective parts of the movie because it's where Kaufman finds his mojo for jokes... In short, concentrated bursts. The problem with a full movie the way this unfolds is that it's like the filmmakers have A.D.D., or more literally it's like someone changing the channel and you have no control over it, as jokes and gags and incredibly stupid garbage keeps flying at the walls as they try to see what sticks that it resembles the sets for the hotel rooms in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Everything but the kitchen sink? How's about the entire house bulldozed while G Gordon Liddy gets a bit?

Speaking of which, the random nonsense is probably what is most endearing about this (even if you might be forgiven at first for mistaking G Gordon for Dabney Coleman and uh you know he probably should've been in jail and not in a comedy circa 1982 but I digress), even as so much of it doesn't work. Kaufman and company act as though we might god forbid get bored if we see a full scene play out, so interruptions happen constantly - sometimes, it is kind of amusing (you can tell when this was filmed if nothing else because it has a Reds cut interview joke, or maybe it's a couple), and other times it seems more like they know they don't have a good clothesline of a plot to hang this on so they just get stupid and gross for the sake of it. That is a legit approach, but it can also be exhausting by the time you're over an hour in.

So, what kind of comedy is this? Well, I'd bet the farm on these guys having seen Airplane or read a few MAD magazines and fancied "hey, we can do that," but they didn't seem to understand that even amid a ZAZ comedy's unrelenting lunacy they had characters we could like and care about; this doesn't have the chemistry between a Hagerty and Hays, or Nielsen and Pressley in Naked Gun. What we have in this movie as the most likeable presence is the one who's among the more, err, "problematic" as we say now elements in David Staithairn(?!) as Weeijun, a Native American in full garb and more or less Indian-Face as the guide who comes in and become part of this "Outdoorsters" family.

(Never say someone hasn't had a FULL career without acknowledging someone like Straithairn fyi, who can say he has an obscure for good reason Troma film on the same resume as Edward R Morrow and Nomadland. So it goes).

But what I mean to say is his interactions with the family, and his self conscious attitude and basic talent as a performer and screen presence, what he brings to them are the closest this gets to a story and it's desperately necessary - yes, even knowing it is an offensive type, and even knowing that it comes out (minor spoiler who cares) he is a white guy playing Native American dress up - when what else is there includes a subplot where the daughter has sex with a bear (oh no the tabloids about it), and uh.... Damn, I'm already forgetting much of this movie! The point is, he is actually trying despite the limitations, and everyone else is... There.

Why this rating is because some of the gags do land. I laughed when the family gets to their spot in the outdoors and a guy is there to park their car and give them a ticket for it (and this is surprisingly a plant and payoff holy god). I laughed hard at the Willie Mays cameo (I hope this gets to resurface on YouTube or somewhere, best part of the movie). I chuckled a bit when the family and Weeijun step slowly away from the guy pontificating as an expert in the woods. And I had a few chuckles when Myron Cohen, the Borscht-belt comic, pops up for a moment or two to roast the characters.

But these moments are pretty far and in between for so much dead air, where the idea is that if it's tasteless that will be enough. It's ironic that the one main draw here is also what if this wasn't so obscure would get it "cancelled" all over again, but the effort wouldn't be necessary. When Nature Calls is at times a charming curio of (too) relentless spoof Anything Goes comic shtick, except... When it isn't (ie a Mammie housecleaner joke with the cougar is... Woof, man).

I recommend everyone stay away from When Nature Calls. I have seen some really lame movies in my years, but this one takes the cake, and to think I paid hard-earned money for this video makes me nauseous.

First of all, on the video, you have to muddle through 25 minutes of absolutely, positively HORRENDOUS previews of parody movies and HORRIBLE interviews made by this video company. If that isn't enough to bury someone, the movie starts and is even worse. And, if that wasn't enough, read on.....I gave up the ghost during "intermission" where a hot dog was "masturbating on popcorn", noses with glasses were "snorting cocaine", hog dogs were "drinking alcohol", and a marijuana leaf "rolled itself into a joint, stood up, and bowed", among other things that were totally rude, crude, and insulting. It couldn't get worse than this "movie"!

It was mentioned that this movie is similar to Airplane, but I don't see any resemblance whatsoever. Airplane is an Oscar winner in comparison!

It took a really sick mind to create this bunch of dogma!

So much bad taste in one movie. The acting is worse than home made. Everything is bad! But, I strongly believe we learn from mistakes and not only from our own mistakes. We learn from any mistake. This is an excellent example of "donts" which is healthy to review study and learn from. I feel I've learned a lot from it. I feel I need to watch it again and again. 10 stars from me because I've learned what happens when things go wrong. I learned more about the fine line between excellent and terrible comedy. Any creative person should watch this. Yes, it is very educational. I'm grateful I've been lucky enough to bump into this pathetic horrendous catastrophic piece of human failed attempt of being creative.