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117 reviews in total

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27 out of 31 people found the following review useful:
Something very different from View-Askew. Glad I saw it..., 8 January 2004

Author: abyoussef from Alameda, CA

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*** 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." He's 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...

by Dane Youssef

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20 out of 27 people found the following review useful:
Amazing, 2 November 2002

Author: Chadd from Ohio

This is one hell of a movie. At times it's funny, and at times it's sad.

Many people don't like this film because it's disturbing. Well, it is. But you just have to get over it. People hated this film being disturbing because they weren't expecting it, they thought it was a light comedy. So just go into it knowing your going to be changed.

For the fainter of heart, rent the Rated version. The rape scene is much shorter. But keep in mind, that wasn't the director's vision.

Great acting, great writing, great directing, great film.

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16 out of 22 people found the following review useful:
Brilliantly disturbing., 27 August 2002

Author: Kit_E_Kate from Swansea, UK

When I watched this film I had no idea what to expect. I am a big fan of Kevin Smith's films, and was eager to see this when I learned of his involvement (and Jason Mewes too!), having enjoyed his unique brand of humour many times before. Therefore this film was not quite what I was expecting. It does in many parts contain that Kevin Smith style humour, but countered by a few extremely dark, disturbing moments. The problem with this film is exactly it's main attribute, and that is that it feels so real when you're watching it, I came away feeling like it had all happened to me, which is one of the hardest things to achieve in a film. The acting was good, the plot was brilliantly original and the acting was very convincing. The only reservations I have are that at times I really didn't want to be watching it. But that said I'm glad I did!

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18 out of 27 people found the following review useful:
good but hard to watch, 29 November 2003

Author: anchorite@geocities.com from Albuquerque, USA

There's no really clever message here, it's just full of questions the viewers also answer along with the main character. It was a very well done film, and I attribute its low IMDB user rating to the average viewer's extreme discomfort with the subject of male on male rape, with which this film deals. American Me also received a similarly low rating from IMDB users, likely for the same reason, and that film is definitely one of the best films ever made, certainly the best and most realistic and, more importantly, relevant, gang/prison film I've ever seen.

Though it was neither written nor directed by him, Vulgar is played off much of the time as a Kevin Smith film (e.g. Dogma, Clerks, Mallrats, Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back), and also stars the main character from Clerks (O'Halloran), as well as Kevin Smith himself and one or two others. It's not a comedy, though, and the sex in the movie is most definitely not meant to be funny or entertaining, nor are the sarcastic comments from the main character's cynical but supportive friend.

It's mainly a good look at how someone deals with a horrible set of life circumstances and events and how it changes them. How much can a truly good person take before they snap? What do you do if you think there's no way to simply avoid doing the (traditionally) wrong thing? There's also a comment on karma, but that doesn't tie-in unless you watch one of the deleted scenes on the DVD. With such a small cast of characters and a believable premise (men are gang raped in real life all the time, outside of prison), it has the added relevance of many independent films in that it makes one imagine themself in a similar situation and how they might react.

The acting is good, the dialogue is, I'm guessing, realistic, no drag and drop lines ("Let's get outta here!" "Are you scared? You should be." "I'm going in! No, you're not!"), and the ending is extremely nerve wracking. If you watch movies to be entertained, skip it, but if you watch them to make yourself think, don't miss it.

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10 out of 12 people found the following review useful:
Strange. This is a film that is extremely easy to hate, but to me, I understood what it was going for and appreciated it for that., 27 May 2006

Author: tonymurphylee from USA

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

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10 out of 14 people found the following review useful:
Interesting in a Very Disgusting Way, 7 March 2004
Author: richard winters (rwint) from Chicago, Illinois

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.

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9 out of 13 people found the following review useful:
Self-Titled, 14 August 2003
Author: WrathChld from in the Darkness

I just finished a movie that took me a long time to finally see. I had wanted to see if for a while, but due to many disturbing reviews I backed off. Until tonight when I popped it in and decided to see for myself how messed up this movie would be. There is no mistaken it, this movie is Vulgar and what you will and will not see is disturbing. Maybe it's because my mind prepared me for the worst case scenario, but it was not as grossest as I thought it would be. Don't get me wrong the invasion and rape of Brian O'Halloran's character is very hard to watch at times. They do a good job of not only making this messed up storyline, but actually building a real storyline with substance.

This movie is not for everyone. That is for damn sure. Most View Askew fans will probably check it out just because they want to see the old familiar gang in yet another movie. We get to see the useless existence of a man who is a kid's clown. He lives in a run down home in a beat up neighborhood. He wants to make something of himself, when he comes up with a scheme. It goes terribly wrong and his life is flipped upside down. We get to see him pull his life together again and make something of himself, when slowly the skeletons leak out of the closet and the madness begins. Even Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes show up in this movie.

Inclosing, if you think you can deal with a movie exploring topics like rape and violence then check out this movie. If you don't have a stomach for that, you might just want to take a pass.

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4 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
Not what i expected from the askew, 3 October 2003

Author: neil_tiffany from N Yorks, UK

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

*****Very minor plot spoilers(tiny really)********

Being a big viewaskew (smith) fan i ordered this film thinking i would get something similar to the other films on askews production company. But this film, by bryan johnson (of steve dave fame), is very differant to smiths film. Its a serious look at how rape can affect a man. Allthough it does have a comedic undertone with the man being a clown, it has some very edgy and reasonably well made moments. As i watched the last 20 mins i found myself feeling very on edge and in the end satisfied with the conclusion. Its a decent film with some good moments and decent acting. For kevin smith fans its worth watching just for his role. For the rest of you if you like a film that deals with harsh realities, maybe this is for you.

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9 out of 14 people found the following review useful:
return of the twisted exploitation movies, 25 February 2003
Author: PaulLondon from United Kingdom

Vulgar is just that. A cheap, nasty but reasonbly watchable exploitation movie of the type that was being made in the late 70's. Sort of a less existential "Driller Killer". The film also has the sort of flatness and flabbiness that characterised much of this type of film.

The sorry tale of Flappy the clown and his treatment at the hands of a bunch of sickos isn't the greatest of stories and there are some agonisingly boring scenes but it is enthusiastically made with a caustic misanthropic eye.

The greatest controversy will doubtlessly be about the rape scene and its perpetrators. These three guys aren't gay - the father is shown as married with a kid and it is his two sons he commits his terrible crimes with. These are a family of psychopaths who delight in homophobic cruelty. "Lets make hate" Dad says as he begins his abuse of Flappy. For a viewer to automatically label the twisted protagonists gay is wrong. They are psychopathic rapists not gays.

The film raises some interesting questions but it just doesn't have the panache to answer them. Unlike "Happiness" and "Contre Seul Tout" there doesn't seem to be much thought behind the provocative nature of the film and certainly the filmmaking isn't as accomplished. A possible cult item of the future but far from an essential view

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4 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
Send in the clown... and brace yourself!, 27 April 2002

Author: Andrew St. Clair from United States

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** In the best role of his career Brian O'Halloran plays Will Carlson (a.k.a. "Flappy") who is a clown down on his luck. Neighbors are sleeping in his piece of crap car, Will's mother can't stand him and he lives in the most ramshackle house in the neighborhood. Life couldn't get much worse for Will. After a children's party falls through Will decides to pack it in. One day while looking through the newspaper for a real job Will has an epiphany.

"This is the single greatest idea I've ever had!" proclaims Will.

He explains to his best friend that since his clowning around at children's parties isn't paying the rent he will put a different spin on things. He creates a raunchy clown character that is designed to appear at bachelor parties as a novelty act. When his best friend suggests that the idea is "vulgar" Will agrees. So much so that he will name his new clown persona just that- "Vulgar".

Unfortunately when "Vulgar" goes to his first gig he meets a very scary Ed (Jerry Lewkowitz in the worst toupee ever) and his 2 sons Frankie and Gino (Ethan Suplee and Matt Maher). But this is no bachelor party. In a harrowing piece of cinema Will is beaten, tortured, held at gunpoint and raped by the threesome. This is a very dark and disturbing scene. But while this well publicized segment is unsettling it is no more disturbing than similar scenes in "The Accused" with Jodie Foster or Pier Paolo Pasolini's "Salò". Needless to say, this film is not for everybody.

When confronted by his best friend, Syd Gilbert, as to what took place Will tells him what happened. Will, who is ashamed and embarrassed of the incident, decides to just let it lay while Syd pleads with him to go to the police. He is the voice of reason throughout the film. This is ironic because Syd is played by director Bryan Johnson who also wrote the film and essentially put Will in this predicament in the first place.

After saving a little girl from a hostage situation, Will and his "Flappy" persona becomes a media darling. Soon a producer (played by Kevin Smith) comes knocking at the door offering a nationwide TV show. Soon Flappy is a huge success with millions of adoring fans from Portland, Oregon to Portland, Maine. Finally Flappy can make a good living, get a real car and pay his Mother's rent at the nursing home.

But all is not well in Flappy's Funhouse. In another creepy scene Ed calls Will on the telephone and blackmails him for $50000 dollars or he will release a videotape of the incident that could potentially ruin Flappy's career. That's when Will decides to take things into his own hands and go face to face with his attackers.

For a low budget film from a first time director "Vulgar" works on many levels. Mr. Johnson creates a dark moodiness to the film that continues even when Flappy is riding high as the number one clown in the nation. You can sense that his happiness won't last long and that impending doom is just around the corner. The music is almost too good for a film of this budget scale and it complements the film very well. Ryan Shore's score helps maintain a dark atmosphere.

On the other hand the sets are terrible. Especially Flappy's Funhouse, which looks like it was built at the very last minute. (I can see it now."Ok. Ready to shoot the Flappy's Funhouse scene... Oh No! We forgot to make a set.Quick! Get some plywood and some spray paint! And let the kids help.") The lighting is equally bad. Watch the inconsistent lighting behind the producer and Will during the meeting in Will's home.

Fortunately for the filmgoer the performances throughout are well acted. The casting is well done for as film of this genre. Brian O'Halloran takes a huge risk and thankfully succeeds. He skillfully conveys all of the emotions the role requires. The sequence when "Vulgar" returns home after his assault is especially gripping. Mr. O'Halloran plays the scene with just the right amount of emotion without going over doing it. Also Jerry Lewkowitz is one creepy b**tard. His portrayal of Ed is scary as hell.

And of course "View Askew" fans will appreciate the appearances of Kevin Smith, Jason Mewes, Scott Mosier and Walt Flanagan as well as the very subtle references to Mr. Smith's movies.

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