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JERKBEAST THE MOVIE
(
www.jerkbeast.com)
Review by Tom Spurgeon
Jerkbeast is a Seattle-area public access show turned minor motion picture now being screened in various out of the way locations and DVD release planned sometime in its future. The film and show feature a man in a giant puppet-type monster suit – think the larger Muppets that run around on two feet – who screams at people in torrents of hilariously abusive dialogue. The TV show consists of Jerkbeast (played by Jerkbeast), his studio partner Benny (Calvin Reeder), their producer Marty (Brian Wendorf) and the occasional studio guest taking phone calls against a blank backdrop and verbally slapping them to the floor. This can be the scores of young people who seem to know the show and who enjoy the chance to curse on the air, or even an unfortunate victim who happens to stumble across something on the show that upsets them, such as the brusque language or a guest-star in a KKK outfit. It's a great idea for a public access show, a middle finger raised to the content- and personality-driven pomposity that makes up the bulk of that kind of programming, at least in the Emerald City. To its credit, the movie has almost nothing to do with the show, and instead chronicles the efforts of Jerkbeast and his pals to secure rock and roll fame behind the song "Looks Like Chocolate, Tastes Like Shit." The crudely filmed movie uses the TV show as a starting point from which the characters flee blissfully and to which they fear returning, and some of the funnier lines early on are from the leads eviscerating their weekly efforts on public access as, at best, the most handsome turds in a toilet bowl.
The movie finds its best moments when the focus is on Jerkbeast, particularly his way of bellowing insults. The costume leavens the nastier implications of the tirades in the same way that Don Rickles being on stage with a microphone in hand lets us in on the performance. Jerkbeast's mini-jeremiads are imaginatively stupid and delivered in a wonderfully jittery bellow, Mr. T crossed with the coked-up Tom Arnold. Having a giant monster rid himself of emotional entanglements by screaming at a lovelorn admirer, "I think your butt smells like a dumpster!" as if he were a 13-year-old on a field trip is about as good and weird and left of reality as insult humor gets. Nearly every scene with Jerkbeast at its center is at least potential comedy gold. When the focus shifts elsewhere for more than a few seconds, the material starts to thin out; the performances are nowhere near as sharp or appealing. There is a humorous recurring bit about the fearsome ugliness of the best-looking cast member, Benny, and a nicely executed dead girlfriend subplot, but many of the scenes without the monster feel unscripted and overlong. The possible exceptions are a couple of loopy narrative vignettes by a friend of Benny's named Preston (Nathan Conrad) who shows up twice unexpectedly. Adopting a child in a car he steals and later starring in backroom porno shows, the character relates these bizarre incidents like the generic letter in a Christmas card. I would watch a whole movie featuring that character, and I would watch ten more that starred Jerkbeast.
Note: for comic book fans, Johnny Ryan and a copy of his
Angry Youth Comics make separate and equally amusing appearances. A cartoon working from Ryan's art is accessible through the
web site and features pretty much the same sense of humor and structure as the film. You can sign up for updates and information on screenings elsewhere on the site.
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