This is the worst movie I have ever seen, and yet I had to see how much more ridiculous it could possibly get and saw it through.... wtf did I just watch, and why?
Do not waste any good drugs for the sake of enjoying this film.
12 Reviews
Pink Flamingos it is NOT
GSK2317 March 2022
Believe you me, I can stomach John Waters' films. This film doesn't even come close to those precise, witty social commentary "bad taste" films!
The plot is sort of engaging at first and the acting is "good enough" (surely no worse than Mr. Waters' genius films), but there's really no point to any of it. If there's any social commentary or underlying message, it's buried deeply under a thick stink of "hipper than thou" that seems to cover the filmmakers themselves.
It's all so dreadfully done that it becomes an endurance test after about a half hour. I pushed all the way through to the end just in case a spark of life reared its head. It never did.
The whole thing felt like it was made by some super privileged rich New Yorkers; the kind I've had experience working with before. They all roll over the common people regularly because they have money and feel that they know everything about the world. There's a scene where the two characters are well-past loaded on drugs and they're out in the streets just being jerks to everyone they meet. It felt improvised to me, and if true, that scene drives my point home: Rich white people rudely pushing average people out of the way to make their ever-so-hip and "edgy" film. All others be damned.
It also felt like someone watched too many Harmony Korine films and thought they "could do that, too!" They can't.
I can do without that kind of pretentious clownery in my films, thank you. Unless they are breaking new ground and have a legit social message to relay to the people. This film failed on all fronts. A marvel to behold on some level, I suppose. But why even bother?
The plot is sort of engaging at first and the acting is "good enough" (surely no worse than Mr. Waters' genius films), but there's really no point to any of it. If there's any social commentary or underlying message, it's buried deeply under a thick stink of "hipper than thou" that seems to cover the filmmakers themselves.
It's all so dreadfully done that it becomes an endurance test after about a half hour. I pushed all the way through to the end just in case a spark of life reared its head. It never did.
The whole thing felt like it was made by some super privileged rich New Yorkers; the kind I've had experience working with before. They all roll over the common people regularly because they have money and feel that they know everything about the world. There's a scene where the two characters are well-past loaded on drugs and they're out in the streets just being jerks to everyone they meet. It felt improvised to me, and if true, that scene drives my point home: Rich white people rudely pushing average people out of the way to make their ever-so-hip and "edgy" film. All others be damned.
It also felt like someone watched too many Harmony Korine films and thought they "could do that, too!" They can't.
I can do without that kind of pretentious clownery in my films, thank you. Unless they are breaking new ground and have a legit social message to relay to the people. This film failed on all fronts. A marvel to behold on some level, I suppose. But why even bother?
It Was a Dark and Stinky Orifice
TrTm31614 January 2019
This movie will gross out some viewers, but others, including Troma survivors, will shrug and ask what's the big deal. Yes, it includes scenes of anal-oral interaction; yes, it includes a fair amount of well-simulated feces. And yet what discomfited me the most was when the main characters acted out in public as horribly obnoxious jerks, so my perspective may be atypical.
A clinical description: Adah and Aaron are a woman and a man who find their romantic prospects circumscribed by herpes. They find solace in each other's rear ends, and in inhalants. The infection and the drug use escalate, culminating in physical changes that are bizarre and humorously symbolic.
So it's a comic-horror-fantasy-gross out story. Does the director intend this as a satire/lament/celebration of the ongoing mainstreaming of heterosexual anal intercourse? Or as a serious warning of the dangers of drugs, couched in raunchy hyperbole? Or, given that Adah, her brother Adam, and their parents are played by real world sister, brother, and parents, maybe it's just a group of slightly weird people, very comfortable with one another, playing together to stay together? I don't know.
Whatever it's meant to be, it's entertaining. It's funny once in a while, gross much of the time, and usually well-acted. Better special effects at the end would have helped, but I'm amazed that any funding was found for this, so kudos to the Brown family. Hmm... maybe this film was borne from word association!
A clinical description: Adah and Aaron are a woman and a man who find their romantic prospects circumscribed by herpes. They find solace in each other's rear ends, and in inhalants. The infection and the drug use escalate, culminating in physical changes that are bizarre and humorously symbolic.
So it's a comic-horror-fantasy-gross out story. Does the director intend this as a satire/lament/celebration of the ongoing mainstreaming of heterosexual anal intercourse? Or as a serious warning of the dangers of drugs, couched in raunchy hyperbole? Or, given that Adah, her brother Adam, and their parents are played by real world sister, brother, and parents, maybe it's just a group of slightly weird people, very comfortable with one another, playing together to stay together? I don't know.
Whatever it's meant to be, it's entertaining. It's funny once in a while, gross much of the time, and usually well-acted. Better special effects at the end would have helped, but I'm amazed that any funding was found for this, so kudos to the Brown family. Hmm... maybe this film was borne from word association!
If you love old John Waters you may think this is hilarious, otherwise stay far far away!!
cali_996925 December 2020
I came across this after watching the I Am Divine documentary and feeling nostalgic for old John Waters movies. This movie really has some strong influence of Pink Flamingos in its DNA. I love Peter Vack since watching him in the movie Consent. So I had to give this a try. And I love everything about it. Yes it's foul and disgusting. But if you don't mind that and if you in fact enjoy foul and disgusting movies, then give this a try. You may hate it but at least you can't say it's boring. Thanks Peter for not being afraid to make this disgusting piece of art.
Often gross but the exaggeration and the absurd made it funny
deloudelouvain7 January 2020
I guess I'll be one of those that did like this movie. I'm not going to pretend it was the best movie ever but I did enjoy it. I was expecting a comedy and that's exactly what I got. Okay it might not be the humor everybody enjoys, poop and buttholes are a bit childish, but nevertheless the irony and the "dark" humor made me laugh more than once. The cast was actually much better than I thought it would be, good actors with a silly but delicate subject.
Delightfully disturbingly absurd
marcdavidcohn29 April 2018
Warning: Spoilers
This movie definitely is not for everyone but the critics are probably too young to remember movies with cinema drag queen Divine.
Assholes can get downright nasty at times just like it's animal namesake. It was hard to watch sloppy French kissing replete with recreational petroleum-based inhalants and gaping herpes sores.
And I could have done just fine without the ass-eating montage. But hey, it's to be expected considering the name of the flick. The final minutes take an abrupt left turn but the introduction to two new assholes makes the odd segue fit just fine.
If you enjoy crude and quirky, darker than dark humor from often strange characters, open your mind and close your mouth around Assholes. (Check out the fun Jackass-inspired award the movie won at SxSW)
Assholes can get downright nasty at times just like it's animal namesake. It was hard to watch sloppy French kissing replete with recreational petroleum-based inhalants and gaping herpes sores.
And I could have done just fine without the ass-eating montage. But hey, it's to be expected considering the name of the flick. The final minutes take an abrupt left turn but the introduction to two new assholes makes the odd segue fit just fine.
If you enjoy crude and quirky, darker than dark humor from often strange characters, open your mind and close your mouth around Assholes. (Check out the fun Jackass-inspired award the movie won at SxSW)
Fantastic
heidileigh-742-55323710 March 2020
Loving To Hate - Hating To Love...
dungeonstudio26 June 2022
Right off the bat, this is a STRANGE movie! Directed by and staring Peter Vack as a drug fuelled homosexual playwright who decides to become a psycho analyst. To make things even stranger, his REAL parents star in it as his own, and his mother is REALLY a psychoanalyst! Peter plays 'Adam', who has newly sober Aaron (Jack Dunphy) as a room mate. Adam's sister Adah is also sober, and see's the same psychiatrist that Aaron does. Adam childishly causes Adah to relapse, and she gravitates towards Aaron. Causing him to quickly relapse. The two go on a binge around New York completely out of control. But Adah's hatred and contempt for her brother only grows, and she tries to convince Aaron to help her kill him. Meanwhile Adam has a total change of heart, and becomes a mild mannered psycho analyst, which drives Adah and Aaron completely around the bend! Without giving away spoilers, the movie gets REALLY strange after that! As absurd and outrageous as it gets though, there's an underlying message somehow woven in. Privy to the commentary and all of Peter Vack, he very humbly states it was a lengthy compiling of ideas strung together. And doesn't really have much intention of it conveying anything deep. He, and his parents seem totally laid back in the interviews after. Which actually made the movie more intriguing after first viewing. Was it some form of therapeutic outlet for Peter to get his innermost fears and desires out of his system? Or, like David Cronenberg - was it merely just some weird ideas that would make for an interesting story? As low budget and outlandish as it all is, the cast and crew really do a good job. An 'Eraserhead' for the new millenium...?
Cult Classic contender
selfdestructo24 July 2022
Critic's Metascore: 17!! Need I say more?
First off: Not for everone. But if you like totally unique, hilarious, bizarre, chaotic, and unhinged indies, then this might be right up your... alley. I live for movies like this, where there are no rules, and obviously no one to answer to. The two lead characters in this do such a great job, as popper-crazy, wasted addicts (with some serious VD). Their performances are outrageous and uninhibited, and they even work in some guerilla filmmaking in the middle of Times Square. Hilarious! I want to see these two chracters in another movie, at their highest!
Adah's (Betsey Brown) sex buddy/boyfriend/future husband Aaron (Jack Dunphy) lives with her brother (and future pompous, indiscretionary psychoanalyst), Adam (Peter Vack). Adah has gone straight, but her brother peer pressures her into hits off his bong... and contracts what has to be the most disgusting case of herpes put on film. She promptly passes this along to Aaron, and down the rabbit hole they go. Their behavior in front of their mortified parents is priceless. Love the death metal music cues. That's really all I can tell you, because this movie is full of surprises.
If you're into unpredictable, obnoxious, gross, yet hilarious comedies that have no intention of playing by the rules, A-holes is a solid pick. Actually, more punk rock than I've seen in a long time.
First off: Not for everone. But if you like totally unique, hilarious, bizarre, chaotic, and unhinged indies, then this might be right up your... alley. I live for movies like this, where there are no rules, and obviously no one to answer to. The two lead characters in this do such a great job, as popper-crazy, wasted addicts (with some serious VD). Their performances are outrageous and uninhibited, and they even work in some guerilla filmmaking in the middle of Times Square. Hilarious! I want to see these two chracters in another movie, at their highest!
Adah's (Betsey Brown) sex buddy/boyfriend/future husband Aaron (Jack Dunphy) lives with her brother (and future pompous, indiscretionary psychoanalyst), Adam (Peter Vack). Adah has gone straight, but her brother peer pressures her into hits off his bong... and contracts what has to be the most disgusting case of herpes put on film. She promptly passes this along to Aaron, and down the rabbit hole they go. Their behavior in front of their mortified parents is priceless. Love the death metal music cues. That's really all I can tell you, because this movie is full of surprises.
If you're into unpredictable, obnoxious, gross, yet hilarious comedies that have no intention of playing by the rules, A-holes is a solid pick. Actually, more punk rock than I've seen in a long time.
Brave experimental Art Comedy about (and with) rear ends
OneSentenceReview24 April 2021
As another review said, it's quite rare such experiments on the rather rear end of the movie spectrum) get produced, so thumbs up (not literally up theirs) for this, also as the (brave) actors are really good (I mean come on, how on earth would you prepare for such characters/roles?) Generally more hilarious and entertaining than gross I found; also the impro street scenes with members of the public presumably not knowing what's going on are quite funny.. All in all an interesting mix of many genres. And even involving a summoned Bowel-Demon - lol.
One for the ages
mygymus23 April 2023
This film- nay- this work of art, is an absolute masterpiece. Anyone who says otherwise probably just isn't smart enough to appreciate the broad societal commentary taking place, between the lines. Truly our generation's "Citizen Kane."
Its a tale as old as time, with a spin that lands like a gut-shot. I'm honestly surprised there aren't already broadway retellings, sequels, and spin-offs. Im sure with time, It'll come. For the present, this film remains wildly underrated.
This artwork really brings something to the table for the entire family. If the wife and kids are bored some weekend, i suggest chucking your dusty old copy of "the breakfast club" in the trash and filling its recently vacated space with this absolute gem.
Godspeed.
This artwork really brings something to the table for the entire family. If the wife and kids are bored some weekend, i suggest chucking your dusty old copy of "the breakfast club" in the trash and filling its recently vacated space with this absolute gem.
Godspeed.
Almost As Bad As Kevin Smith's "Vulgar"
drivemenutzlong19 March 2020
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