A gimp gets his head shot. Nothing happens. Random talking. Nothing happens. Naked Asian girl showering. Nothing happens......... Nothing happens. Random talking.... Some woman is shocking her mind with salacious crap. Nothing happens..... More rambling. Nothing happens. Guy goes on killing spree. Nothing happens..... Nothing happens. The end. Sixteen Tongues is a movie, I think. Well, I was mislead that this was going to be a surrealist left field movie and instead I get meaninglessness with a few talking heads, a deformed dude with 16 tongues on parts of his body because.... reasons, some graphic nudity and a bunch of stupid philosophy (I assume) unimportant to my assimilation. Pretty much it is muddled with boring fillers, unimaginable settings and it's too talkative and it is not the fault of budget constraints either. Plus the walls of "holes" made me sick. You could argue controversial in that regard but logically it is stupid. On a positive note, for some reason the bald Asian girl made me ..... stuff and it does have some good ideas. Just bad execution.
9 Reviews
You Load 16 Tongues . What Do You Get . Another Day Older And Deeper In Debt
DavyDissonance7 October 2022
Warning: Spoilers
Sub Rosa strikes (out) again
BrandtSponseller12 June 2005
Although I'm always careful to avoid others' opinions before I see a film and make up my mind about it, I often look at what others have to say after I've reached a conclusion. I'm regularly flabbergasted by opinions on films such as Sixteen Tongues--which I thought was horrible--because they are often somewhat favorable. It especially confounds me in light of the consistently negative reviews received by films such as, say, Boogeyman (2005) or Gothika (2003), which I don't think are masterpieces, but they're well made. If reviewers are using anything even remotely resembling my criteria for film criticism, I have a difficult time understanding anyone thinking that a film like Sixteen Tongues is great while they also think that films like Boogeyman or Gothika are horrible.
My current theory is that people are championing certain cultural facts. They're celebrating the simple existence of independent films made on extremely low budgets, which are marketed as being somewhat "underground", and in which filmmakers are trying to do something different artistically while they deal with at least some controversial subject matter. An attendant anti-"Hollywood", anti-commercial, anti-big budget attitude tends to go hand in hand with the above.
From my point of view, I'm critiquing the films only. I'm not critiquing any cultural facts, and I'm not giving any extra points or alternatively subtracting points for cultural situations that I'm in favor of or against, respectively. I think films should be viewed as if they exist in cultural vacuums. A movie is good or not only for what appears on your screen and comes out of your speakers. No other facts have a bearing on whether a film is good or not. Regardless of whether crap was produced for only ten dollars or ten million dollars, it's still crap. And Sixteen Tongues is crap.
There are some potentially interesting things about the premise, on the "forest" level. The film is set in a post-apocalyptic future. The characters live in a run-down hotel/apartment building. They have to pay for water with their credit cards. They also have to pay to shut off the television, which otherwise continually plays porno commercials similar to those for 900 numbers that run at the beginning of porno VHS tapes. The government is now building robots, including prostitution robots, combat robots and so on. For some strange reason, an ability to surf the Internet is a rare skill in the film, so a character possessing the ability is depended on and looked up to. Most of these facts have to be pieced together by the viewer over the course of the film, and they all read 100 times more interesting than they play in the film.
More pragmatically, Sixteen Tongues centers on three unattractive characters in two spartan settings. Although there is almost constant nudity, and there are a couple violent scenes, the vast majority of screen time is taken up with incessant talking and relatively inactive shots of these three characters while they provide narration. The story just isn't that interesting or well developed. The talking and narration are both very pretentious. And if they don't lean towards gobbledy-gook, they lean towards blandness.
The male character, Adrian Torque (Crawford James), was killed during the last war and then brought back to life. He required skin grafts, and for some reason that either wasn't stated or was too garbled to understand (the sound mix is pretty bad, and characters tend to mumble and can't enunciate very well) the skin grafts were done with 16 tongues. From what I could tell, they were supposed to be human tongues, but they're sizeable enough and have characteristics more like giant lizard tongues. Maybe dinosaurs exist in the film's world. Supposedly the tongue grafts still work like tongues, as Torque says he can taste things through them. The idea is ridiculous and in a better film could have been campy and funny (it's too absurd to work seriously, which is the attempt here). It seems to just be an excuse for an easy way to use the title "Sixteen Tongues".
The other two characters are Asian women who, despite being naked most of the time, are made to look as unattractive as possible. Ginny Chin-Chin's (Jane Chase) head has been shaven, which doesn't suit her, if it would suit any woman, and Alik Silens (Alice Liu) is made to look dorky--like those token male dweebs in teen comedies. It might seem like complaining about the women's attractiveness is trivial, but as the majority of the film is these two women rambling on and on in a hotel room with crappy production design and crappier cinematography, nudity is about the only possible attractor. Plus, Ginny, at least, is supposed to be sexy. Usually there's nothing I like more than seeing naked Asian women, but in this case, not really.
For some, the attraction here is probably the "daring" subject matter. The nudity in the film is full frontal. There is simulated oral sex (on a male) and simulated hand manipulation (again on a male). The television keeps showing a crappily-filmed-but-graphic porno commercial, and the walls are papered with crappily-designed-(and too often repeated)-but-graphic porno advertisements. I'm a big fan of putting taboo-breaking material like this in films, but here, it doesn't work. It seems like director Scooter McCrae included it just because it's usually taboo. That's not sufficient to make a good film.
I can't really think of a scene that wasn't poorly shot, poorly lit, poorly blocked and poorly set. I can't think of any aspect of the script that I liked. I can't think of any scene that even slightly drew me into the film. I can't think of any aspect of the performances I liked. I didn't get any aesthetic or philosophic value from the film. I've only given an extra point because the premise has a smidgen of potential and the film is somewhat coherent.
My current theory is that people are championing certain cultural facts. They're celebrating the simple existence of independent films made on extremely low budgets, which are marketed as being somewhat "underground", and in which filmmakers are trying to do something different artistically while they deal with at least some controversial subject matter. An attendant anti-"Hollywood", anti-commercial, anti-big budget attitude tends to go hand in hand with the above.
From my point of view, I'm critiquing the films only. I'm not critiquing any cultural facts, and I'm not giving any extra points or alternatively subtracting points for cultural situations that I'm in favor of or against, respectively. I think films should be viewed as if they exist in cultural vacuums. A movie is good or not only for what appears on your screen and comes out of your speakers. No other facts have a bearing on whether a film is good or not. Regardless of whether crap was produced for only ten dollars or ten million dollars, it's still crap. And Sixteen Tongues is crap.
There are some potentially interesting things about the premise, on the "forest" level. The film is set in a post-apocalyptic future. The characters live in a run-down hotel/apartment building. They have to pay for water with their credit cards. They also have to pay to shut off the television, which otherwise continually plays porno commercials similar to those for 900 numbers that run at the beginning of porno VHS tapes. The government is now building robots, including prostitution robots, combat robots and so on. For some strange reason, an ability to surf the Internet is a rare skill in the film, so a character possessing the ability is depended on and looked up to. Most of these facts have to be pieced together by the viewer over the course of the film, and they all read 100 times more interesting than they play in the film.
More pragmatically, Sixteen Tongues centers on three unattractive characters in two spartan settings. Although there is almost constant nudity, and there are a couple violent scenes, the vast majority of screen time is taken up with incessant talking and relatively inactive shots of these three characters while they provide narration. The story just isn't that interesting or well developed. The talking and narration are both very pretentious. And if they don't lean towards gobbledy-gook, they lean towards blandness.
The male character, Adrian Torque (Crawford James), was killed during the last war and then brought back to life. He required skin grafts, and for some reason that either wasn't stated or was too garbled to understand (the sound mix is pretty bad, and characters tend to mumble and can't enunciate very well) the skin grafts were done with 16 tongues. From what I could tell, they were supposed to be human tongues, but they're sizeable enough and have characteristics more like giant lizard tongues. Maybe dinosaurs exist in the film's world. Supposedly the tongue grafts still work like tongues, as Torque says he can taste things through them. The idea is ridiculous and in a better film could have been campy and funny (it's too absurd to work seriously, which is the attempt here). It seems to just be an excuse for an easy way to use the title "Sixteen Tongues".
The other two characters are Asian women who, despite being naked most of the time, are made to look as unattractive as possible. Ginny Chin-Chin's (Jane Chase) head has been shaven, which doesn't suit her, if it would suit any woman, and Alik Silens (Alice Liu) is made to look dorky--like those token male dweebs in teen comedies. It might seem like complaining about the women's attractiveness is trivial, but as the majority of the film is these two women rambling on and on in a hotel room with crappy production design and crappier cinematography, nudity is about the only possible attractor. Plus, Ginny, at least, is supposed to be sexy. Usually there's nothing I like more than seeing naked Asian women, but in this case, not really.
For some, the attraction here is probably the "daring" subject matter. The nudity in the film is full frontal. There is simulated oral sex (on a male) and simulated hand manipulation (again on a male). The television keeps showing a crappily-filmed-but-graphic porno commercial, and the walls are papered with crappily-designed-(and too often repeated)-but-graphic porno advertisements. I'm a big fan of putting taboo-breaking material like this in films, but here, it doesn't work. It seems like director Scooter McCrae included it just because it's usually taboo. That's not sufficient to make a good film.
I can't really think of a scene that wasn't poorly shot, poorly lit, poorly blocked and poorly set. I can't think of any aspect of the script that I liked. I can't think of any scene that even slightly drew me into the film. I can't think of any aspect of the performances I liked. I didn't get any aesthetic or philosophic value from the film. I've only given an extra point because the premise has a smidgen of potential and the film is somewhat coherent.
Pretty interesting little cyberpunk trash cheapie
Bloodwank7 December 2011
In better hands Sixteen Tongues could have been a real gem. Ferrara maybe, or Cronenberg, or better yet some slime crusted, fork dicked hybrid of the two, Ferrara's pointed grime and Cronenberg's art and smarts. Sadly writer/director Scooter McRae isn't fit to shine the balls of either of the aforementioned, let alone a super-being made of their best qualities, but he comes up with a pretty watchable slice of underground trash nonetheless. Things even start rather well, opening credits laid over blue tinted extreme close ups of body parts mixed with strobe lighting, it sets up the films central theme of body overpowering, magnified, perverted, we see belly as plain, breasts as heaping dunes, flesh as landscape. And where the body is not just vessel for the mind in the world but world itself, what place is there for the mind? Then pretty much the first scene of the film is a freaky disfigured guy taunting a hooded prisoner before raping him in the mouth and shooting him in the head. Regrettably after this auspicious opening the film settles into a somewhat slow, repetitious groove and I'll wager many will find it deeply tedious. The plot switches to a female assassin and her hacker girlfriend shacked up in an incredibly seedy hotel (here you have to pay to turn the porn off), they argue, screw and pursue a nebulous vengeance, matters coming to a head with the arrival of the earlier disfigured gent. It all ends in suitably violent fashion which will either come as a relief or a fitting finale depending on your patience. Me, I liked it well enough. Starlets Jane Chase and Alice Liu are mostly naked during the film, and while both are shot and made up to look kinda dorky and unappealing they got at least the ghost of a rise out of me. Also both of them (as well as Crawford Chase as the sinister disfigured dude) perform with commitment, the ennui they bring feels organic rather than an unintentional side effect of the film-making, their dulled tones, flares of tired anger, blurts of frenzy, it works in a gritty sort of manner. The general design is effective too, cheapest hotel imaginable but with pornographic trapping everywhere, even the odd full on mannequin. Everything works together to put across notions of body, mind and control, ideas that are not especially developed, rather interesting tones, together a lulling, darkly ambient experience. I wouldn't necessarily recommend this to anyone that isn't a devotee of underground cyberpunk themed trash, but to those on the same wonky wavelength (myself for example), its a nice little watch. 6/10.
Bold underground film
migcoyula6 November 2006
Sometime in the future two people are hiding in an S&M motel: Adrian Torque (Crawford James) should now be dead. He is a renegade cop whose skin was reconstructed out of the sixteen tongues of fellow officers who died next to him in a terrible explosion. He is not a Frankenstein only on the outside, but he is also slowly driven mad by a never-ending stream of tastes. Adrian is not your average cop. The opening scene shows him interrogating a prisoner, then he forces him to perform graphic fellatio on him before blasting his brains against the wall.
Ginny Chin-Chin (Jane Chase) is a female assassin who has a clitoris implanted on her eyebrows; every blink triggers her incontrollable impulses. She stays in a room with her hacker girlfriend (Alice Liu). Their lives are about to collide with Adrian Torque.
Unfortunately Sixteen Tongues falters on the technical side. This movie would have benefited enormously from a more elaborate (not expensive) "mise en scene," simply because of its claustrophobic nature and stylized ideas. After all, this is a film set in the future. I'm not saying that it needed a bigger budget. Sometimes stunning cinematography can disguise a low budget. After an impressive opening credit sequence the visuals lose strength. The lighting is poor, or let's better say non-inexistent, for a big part of the film. The lampshades in the rooms are just not enough to keep the image clear of video noise. Maybe it is the ultimate realistic lighting, but it just doesn't looks good. However, the flickering blue light from the TV in Adrian's room is adequate and atmospheric.
The camera-work is uneven. Sometimes it is imprecise in its framing and sloppy in its movements. I like darkness and/or hand-held shots, but only when it is purposefully intended for a specific reason, with some kind of stylization behind it, to achieve a determinate goal.
The sound mix needs some equalization; mostly the voice-overs are sometimes hard to hear. But the music is pretty effective, adding greatly to the dark cyber-punk atmosphere. The opening and end credits tracks are both pretty good.
The actors all look like they are supposed to. Adrian is tall, tough looking. Virginia is cold and sensual at the same time. Although there are some weak moments, the acting is passable for the most part.
On the other hand, the sets evoke the seedy atmosphere of the location very effectively. The hallways are filled with porn photos. There is some of A Clockwork Orange's resonance in an ice machine shaped as two buttocks, the ice spurting from between them into the glass, and a doll with her legs spread over Adrian's TV. The S&M costumes, special effects, make up, gunshots are pretty well done for microcinema standards. The intricate animated sequences depicting web surfing deserves special mention. The live action scenes should have had this level of elaboration.
The pacing of the film suffers from some well-written, but sometimes extended voice overs. They serve the purpose of providing the background stories for the characters as well as some interesting concepts, but less is more. I would have rather have the film find a low budget, yet effective way of "showing me" rather than "telling me" some of its ideas.
But at the end, the power of this film lies in its ideas, original plot, and characters. If you are able to put the technical flaws aside, it succeeds tremendously in creating a uniquely grotesque world invaded by porn and genetically-altered people. In this world you have to swipe your credit card to be able to shut off the never-ending porn ads on your TV, or to use tap water or to take a shower.
There is a tasty amorality permeating all of the characters. If you think the protagonists are deviant, wait till you meet some of the guests from this motel. Despite what I said about the visuals, there are many memorable images. One comes to mind now: A penis ejaculating blood on a female chest. It left me wondering how life outside the motel in that world would be like.
One feels the script was written without any kind of self-censorship. Scooter McCrae doesn't seem very concerned about being assimilated by Hollywood, as it should be. In that sense, Sixteen Tongues takes full advantage of being a microcinema movie. It is not afraid to shock or disturb you with it's graphic sexuality, violence, and bold ideas.
Ginny Chin-Chin (Jane Chase) is a female assassin who has a clitoris implanted on her eyebrows; every blink triggers her incontrollable impulses. She stays in a room with her hacker girlfriend (Alice Liu). Their lives are about to collide with Adrian Torque.
Unfortunately Sixteen Tongues falters on the technical side. This movie would have benefited enormously from a more elaborate (not expensive) "mise en scene," simply because of its claustrophobic nature and stylized ideas. After all, this is a film set in the future. I'm not saying that it needed a bigger budget. Sometimes stunning cinematography can disguise a low budget. After an impressive opening credit sequence the visuals lose strength. The lighting is poor, or let's better say non-inexistent, for a big part of the film. The lampshades in the rooms are just not enough to keep the image clear of video noise. Maybe it is the ultimate realistic lighting, but it just doesn't looks good. However, the flickering blue light from the TV in Adrian's room is adequate and atmospheric.
The camera-work is uneven. Sometimes it is imprecise in its framing and sloppy in its movements. I like darkness and/or hand-held shots, but only when it is purposefully intended for a specific reason, with some kind of stylization behind it, to achieve a determinate goal.
The sound mix needs some equalization; mostly the voice-overs are sometimes hard to hear. But the music is pretty effective, adding greatly to the dark cyber-punk atmosphere. The opening and end credits tracks are both pretty good.
The actors all look like they are supposed to. Adrian is tall, tough looking. Virginia is cold and sensual at the same time. Although there are some weak moments, the acting is passable for the most part.
On the other hand, the sets evoke the seedy atmosphere of the location very effectively. The hallways are filled with porn photos. There is some of A Clockwork Orange's resonance in an ice machine shaped as two buttocks, the ice spurting from between them into the glass, and a doll with her legs spread over Adrian's TV. The S&M costumes, special effects, make up, gunshots are pretty well done for microcinema standards. The intricate animated sequences depicting web surfing deserves special mention. The live action scenes should have had this level of elaboration.
The pacing of the film suffers from some well-written, but sometimes extended voice overs. They serve the purpose of providing the background stories for the characters as well as some interesting concepts, but less is more. I would have rather have the film find a low budget, yet effective way of "showing me" rather than "telling me" some of its ideas.
But at the end, the power of this film lies in its ideas, original plot, and characters. If you are able to put the technical flaws aside, it succeeds tremendously in creating a uniquely grotesque world invaded by porn and genetically-altered people. In this world you have to swipe your credit card to be able to shut off the never-ending porn ads on your TV, or to use tap water or to take a shower.
There is a tasty amorality permeating all of the characters. If you think the protagonists are deviant, wait till you meet some of the guests from this motel. Despite what I said about the visuals, there are many memorable images. One comes to mind now: A penis ejaculating blood on a female chest. It left me wondering how life outside the motel in that world would be like.
One feels the script was written without any kind of self-censorship. Scooter McCrae doesn't seem very concerned about being assimilated by Hollywood, as it should be. In that sense, Sixteen Tongues takes full advantage of being a microcinema movie. It is not afraid to shock or disturb you with it's graphic sexuality, violence, and bold ideas.
Use Your Head
stypee20 January 2006
"Sixteen Tongues" is not a film that is easily digestible, in fact, it makes it obvious during the movie's first established shot. The plot is simple and yet the message forces the viewer to "read between the lines" of thismicro-budget, cyber-sexual thriller. What the director (Scooter McCrae,"Shatter Dead") does is create startling and quite thought provokingdialog to engage the viewer in what the film's budget lacks visually.
It is a dark and disturbing look at a future many of us want to avoid. The truth resides literally between the lines. For one to really understand and experience "Sixteen Tongues" as a great cinematic experience, one must look beyond the images and at what the screenwriter (McCrae) is trying to say. What many of today's audiences tend to forget is that movies are not always supposed to be handed over to you by "a lazy Hollywood" with happy endings and saccharine story lines. A good film like "Tongues', forces you to think and at times it does provoke uncomfortable reactions.
"Sixteen Tongues" is about, a universe propelled by a sexuality so demanding humanity is forced to literally pay for it. "Tongues" bold expression is a UPC symbol planted underneath our skin. Do not watch it as another "fly-by-night-run-of-the-mill" S.O.V. flick; experience it and think about its memorandum. I enjoyed the film enormously and would highly recommend McCrae's (as well as his first, "Shatter Dead) second effort, it is unique, and frankly, it is a film that pushes the boundaries of modern realism while keeping a sharp distance from mainstream flair.
It is a dark and disturbing look at a future many of us want to avoid. The truth resides literally between the lines. For one to really understand and experience "Sixteen Tongues" as a great cinematic experience, one must look beyond the images and at what the screenwriter (McCrae) is trying to say. What many of today's audiences tend to forget is that movies are not always supposed to be handed over to you by "a lazy Hollywood" with happy endings and saccharine story lines. A good film like "Tongues', forces you to think and at times it does provoke uncomfortable reactions.
"Sixteen Tongues" is about, a universe propelled by a sexuality so demanding humanity is forced to literally pay for it. "Tongues" bold expression is a UPC symbol planted underneath our skin. Do not watch it as another "fly-by-night-run-of-the-mill" S.O.V. flick; experience it and think about its memorandum. I enjoyed the film enormously and would highly recommend McCrae's (as well as his first, "Shatter Dead) second effort, it is unique, and frankly, it is a film that pushes the boundaries of modern realism while keeping a sharp distance from mainstream flair.
This is what cyberpunk is all about
CyberRax1 June 2005
The story goes as following: in an SM hotel, where walls are full of porn ads and the TV screens porn the whole time, stay 3 different people, who all must deal with their problems. The first is Adrian, a cop who was severely injured in a blast. His skin was replaced with the material from the tongues of 16 people (hence the name of the movie). Because of this he can literally taste his own clothes and everything he touches. The second is a female hacker, Alik, who's constantly accessing the Web in search for information. Third - Alik's lover, the assassin Ginny. She must deal with the urge to kill and with the artificial clitorises that are situated under both eyelids making her orgasm every time she blinks.
In short: I liked it. If one can see beneath the adult rated surface and won't be repulsed by the huge amount of sexual images then what we've got is a very solid cyberpunk movie. It resembles to Gibson's stories - several different tales which become one in the end, the technology, as crazy as it is, is just a by-product, it doesn't strive the story. Not much happens, we just get to know the characters, get to see why they do the things they do.
In short: I liked it. If one can see beneath the adult rated surface and won't be repulsed by the huge amount of sexual images then what we've got is a very solid cyberpunk movie. It resembles to Gibson's stories - several different tales which become one in the end, the technology, as crazy as it is, is just a by-product, it doesn't strive the story. Not much happens, we just get to know the characters, get to see why they do the things they do.
Ideas heavy, low budget cyberpunk thriller.
projectcyclops25 February 2008
Sixteen Tongues is a sci-fi thriller set in a dystopian and highly sexualised future. It's written and directed by sometimes film-maker Scooter MacRae, best known for his feature debut 'Shatter Dead' which won him the Best Independent Film award at the Fantafestival in 1995.
The plot concerns two female lovers living in a motel room in the near future. Ginny is an assassin, genetically engineered and implanted with two clitoris's (clitori?) on her eyelids to curb her psychotic impulses, while her girlfriend Alik is a hacker who's searching for the scientist who created Ginny and for the man who killed her brother... So far so cyberpunk, but things get even more brutal when a rogue cop moves into a room down the hall. Adrian is a violent and ruthless man, although considering that he's had sixteen tongues grafted onto him after a near fatal explosion one can see why. Said tongues are sending multiple taste sensations to his brain and it's driving him insane. After a chance meeting by the ice machine Adrian and Ginny form a sort of bond over their respective abnormalities and things progress from there. Over it's 80 minutes the film slowly builds-up tension and ends with a deadly confrontation in the corridors of the Saphio Motel.
The 3.2/10 rating on IMDb.com speaks volumes about the films reception into the mainstream, but there's plenty of fantastic ideas and creative imagery for those who wish to look closer and who aren't put off by micro-budget cinema. Sixteen Tongues is set entirely within the Saphio with no exterior shots whatsoever, no doubt to save money as well as create a look and an atmosphere. The halls are decorated entirely with pornography and the televisions play it on a loop, using your credit card is the only way to shut them off, or indeed to get water, ice, light, etc. The hotel is populated by an appropriately creepy cast of S&M freaks and bums that the main players interact with but ultimately disregard. In short it's a realised world these characters inhabit.
While I'd like very much to praise the vision of the film-maker and to highly recommend this film to anyone interested in apocalyptic film, I really can't. The execution of the film, the sound, the acting, the effects are all lacking. The lighting is bad, actors lines are often mumbled and there's an overall sense of a low budget hampering what could have been a very well done little thriller. The pornography, while an interesting idea and a good visual technique, seems forced and as a lot of other reviews say, you feel more than a little dirty after watching it. The saving grace is probably Ginny, a sympathetic character played surprisingly well by Jane Chase.
However... If you've seen MacRae's previous work and can see past the films technical flaws then you might discover Sixteen Tongues to be real gem, unusual, unsettling, violent and something quite different.
The plot concerns two female lovers living in a motel room in the near future. Ginny is an assassin, genetically engineered and implanted with two clitoris's (clitori?) on her eyelids to curb her psychotic impulses, while her girlfriend Alik is a hacker who's searching for the scientist who created Ginny and for the man who killed her brother... So far so cyberpunk, but things get even more brutal when a rogue cop moves into a room down the hall. Adrian is a violent and ruthless man, although considering that he's had sixteen tongues grafted onto him after a near fatal explosion one can see why. Said tongues are sending multiple taste sensations to his brain and it's driving him insane. After a chance meeting by the ice machine Adrian and Ginny form a sort of bond over their respective abnormalities and things progress from there. Over it's 80 minutes the film slowly builds-up tension and ends with a deadly confrontation in the corridors of the Saphio Motel.
The 3.2/10 rating on IMDb.com speaks volumes about the films reception into the mainstream, but there's plenty of fantastic ideas and creative imagery for those who wish to look closer and who aren't put off by micro-budget cinema. Sixteen Tongues is set entirely within the Saphio with no exterior shots whatsoever, no doubt to save money as well as create a look and an atmosphere. The halls are decorated entirely with pornography and the televisions play it on a loop, using your credit card is the only way to shut them off, or indeed to get water, ice, light, etc. The hotel is populated by an appropriately creepy cast of S&M freaks and bums that the main players interact with but ultimately disregard. In short it's a realised world these characters inhabit.
While I'd like very much to praise the vision of the film-maker and to highly recommend this film to anyone interested in apocalyptic film, I really can't. The execution of the film, the sound, the acting, the effects are all lacking. The lighting is bad, actors lines are often mumbled and there's an overall sense of a low budget hampering what could have been a very well done little thriller. The pornography, while an interesting idea and a good visual technique, seems forced and as a lot of other reviews say, you feel more than a little dirty after watching it. The saving grace is probably Ginny, a sympathetic character played surprisingly well by Jane Chase.
However... If you've seen MacRae's previous work and can see past the films technical flaws then you might discover Sixteen Tongues to be real gem, unusual, unsettling, violent and something quite different.
One Of The Best Underground Movies In A Long Time!
chazy-sciota22 February 2006
On the weekends, all I wanna do is kick back, a brew in hand, maybe some smoking material, and pop in a sick, twisted, mindless movie into my DVD player. Makes the time pass pretty quick and puts a huge smile on my face.
But I have to tell you, in recent years, there's been a dry spell when it comes to cult films. I don't know why, but every little dingbat wannabe with a video camera tries to (re-)shoot their favorite, big budget movie. This gets tired very quickly, let me tell you.
But I gotta say that I recently came across this movie a couple of months ago. It's from the same guy that made "Shatterdead" which I loved back in the day. Only this time he's doing sci-fi and, boy, is it nasty! It was a perfect weekend movie. It's got hot, naked Asian girls, gory makeup, and guns. Oh, did I forget to say it's got hot Asian chicks! It's totally perverted.
I haven't seen something like it in a long time. At least someone's still out there making cult movies.
But I have to tell you, in recent years, there's been a dry spell when it comes to cult films. I don't know why, but every little dingbat wannabe with a video camera tries to (re-)shoot their favorite, big budget movie. This gets tired very quickly, let me tell you.
But I gotta say that I recently came across this movie a couple of months ago. It's from the same guy that made "Shatterdead" which I loved back in the day. Only this time he's doing sci-fi and, boy, is it nasty! It was a perfect weekend movie. It's got hot, naked Asian girls, gory makeup, and guns. Oh, did I forget to say it's got hot Asian chicks! It's totally perverted.
I haven't seen something like it in a long time. At least someone's still out there making cult movies.
Incredible
BandSAboutMovies29 January 2023
Warning: Spoilers
The first time I wrestled in Japan, I took a handful of sleeping pills on a 19-hour flight and they never really kicked in, fighting in my gut with a glass bottle of Thailand Red Bull which laughs at that skinny can we have here and I was caught in a world between sleep and awake, knowing where I was but feeling like someone else was dragging me through airport lobbies, subway stations packed with singsong teenage girls trying to get dogs adopted and endless walking through the unfamiliar streets of Osaka until we ended at the Arrow Hotel, a place with a BGM button in my small room that only played two songs - the themes from The Godfather and Midnight Cowboy - and a TV that only played bukkake porn that had pixelated genitalia all static shafts spraying all over a woman whose face was anything but hidden.
Sixteen Tongues starts there and goes even further, giving me flashbacks that shock me into unreality, like at the end of Altered States when people start to de-evolve into VHS tracking noise before we knew what that was.
Director and writer Scooter McCrae creates worlds filled with menace and carnal overload and never more than this movie, a hotel where you have to pay to shut off the endless penetration on the TVs that never shut down, can never be unplugged, that just fluff you until you remember those screaming moments of first puberty overwhelming need with the adult realization that there's truly nowhere to gain relief.
I always loved the Dark Brothers because back in the letters pages of Hustler people were enraged that someone had the effrontery to make a dirty movie that was nearly impossible to climax to. How dare someone put art in my smut? Or, in the case of this movie, smut in my art?
Adrian Torque (Crawford James, who improbably also played a cop on iCarly, so he's done the alpha and omega of being a police officer on film, one supposes; he was also a security guard in The 6th Day) survived a bomb blast but maybe his mind and body didn't. He has the sixteen tongues of everyone who died around him grafted to his skin and he can feel them all screaming inside his mind.
Ginny Chin-Chin (Jane Chase) is a cyborg good at making love and taking lives. She's in a constant state of arousal thanks to the mad scientist she dreams of killing, a man who implanted a clitoris inside each of her eyes. Her lover - who hasn't given her much in the way of relief in some time or maybe just days, who can even know - Alik Silens (Alice Liu) is a hacker obsessed with finding the man who killed her brother.
You know how everyone was making future tech movies in the 90s and 2000s and all of it felt dated instantly? When so many people filmed Phillip K. Dick movies and referenced William Gibson? Sixteen Tongues is at once the film they wanted to make and never could because sex is worse than death. For all everyone refers to movies as being like Cronenberg, I'm more amazed by this movie which is its own genre, its own world, its own influence.
I've read that this was based on the Merle Travis song "Sixteen Tons," which goes "Some people say a man is made outta mud, a poor man's made outta muscle and blood. Muscle and blood and skin and bones, a mind that's a-weak and a back that's strong." The song came from the writer's life, as his brother wrote to him and remarked, "You load sixteen tons and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt" while his coal miner father often would state, "I can't afford to die. I owe my soul to the company store." It's a catchy song that's fun to sing until you realize all these men were under the Earth digging and dying.
Also: Stark Raven from Shatter Dead showing up as a nun in latex, a character named Mistress Mummy and Tina Krause playing "Bear Handler" and sings you into seeing her dancing bear.
Sixteen Tongues starts there and goes even further, giving me flashbacks that shock me into unreality, like at the end of Altered States when people start to de-evolve into VHS tracking noise before we knew what that was.
Director and writer Scooter McCrae creates worlds filled with menace and carnal overload and never more than this movie, a hotel where you have to pay to shut off the endless penetration on the TVs that never shut down, can never be unplugged, that just fluff you until you remember those screaming moments of first puberty overwhelming need with the adult realization that there's truly nowhere to gain relief.
I always loved the Dark Brothers because back in the letters pages of Hustler people were enraged that someone had the effrontery to make a dirty movie that was nearly impossible to climax to. How dare someone put art in my smut? Or, in the case of this movie, smut in my art?
Adrian Torque (Crawford James, who improbably also played a cop on iCarly, so he's done the alpha and omega of being a police officer on film, one supposes; he was also a security guard in The 6th Day) survived a bomb blast but maybe his mind and body didn't. He has the sixteen tongues of everyone who died around him grafted to his skin and he can feel them all screaming inside his mind.
Ginny Chin-Chin (Jane Chase) is a cyborg good at making love and taking lives. She's in a constant state of arousal thanks to the mad scientist she dreams of killing, a man who implanted a clitoris inside each of her eyes. Her lover - who hasn't given her much in the way of relief in some time or maybe just days, who can even know - Alik Silens (Alice Liu) is a hacker obsessed with finding the man who killed her brother.
You know how everyone was making future tech movies in the 90s and 2000s and all of it felt dated instantly? When so many people filmed Phillip K. Dick movies and referenced William Gibson? Sixteen Tongues is at once the film they wanted to make and never could because sex is worse than death. For all everyone refers to movies as being like Cronenberg, I'm more amazed by this movie which is its own genre, its own world, its own influence.
I've read that this was based on the Merle Travis song "Sixteen Tons," which goes "Some people say a man is made outta mud, a poor man's made outta muscle and blood. Muscle and blood and skin and bones, a mind that's a-weak and a back that's strong." The song came from the writer's life, as his brother wrote to him and remarked, "You load sixteen tons and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt" while his coal miner father often would state, "I can't afford to die. I owe my soul to the company store." It's a catchy song that's fun to sing until you realize all these men were under the Earth digging and dying.
Also: Stark Raven from Shatter Dead showing up as a nun in latex, a character named Mistress Mummy and Tina Krause playing "Bear Handler" and sings you into seeing her dancing bear.
See also
Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews
