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Nick Zedd
A controversial nihilistic artist that formed the Cinema of Transgression and recruited Richard Kern (see Kern for more details). The manifesto for Cinema of Transgression emphasizes shock with humor in order to overcome cinematic boredom and rigidity, and challenge all traditional forms of thought, authority and morality in order to achieve a 'higher plane' and break free. As such, this is very reminiscent of the Dada movement, except Dada was more comprehensive, intellectual and political in nature, whereas this feels more like an underground avant-garde sophomorically shocking movement directed against cinematic conventions. While Kern often went for the abstract and created 'transgressive art' with a point, Zedd's shorts feel either more confrontational in a personal or nihilistic way, or just masturbatory explorations of dark subjects. As such, I find him less interesting. His shorts (which have also been released on DVD), include 'Police State' where an angry punk youth is unfairly and brutally treated by fascist policemen, 'Whoregasm' - a throbbing pounding mix of pornography, war scenes, mechanical motion, etc, 'Ecstasy in Entropy' - where old men and whores have a party that deteriorates into nasty perversions and hostility, 'Screen Test' which aims the camera at a collection of weirdos while they improvise for the camera, and a few other uninteresting pieces. An exercise that looks like Zedd purposely tried to create the worst movie ever made. The plot is non-existent and wanders around from one boring scene to another, the acting is the worst imaginable with dull actors grinning while droning out boring lines, the story takes ideas from Frankenstein and Dracula, the editing and cinematography is dire, the costumes are from school projects and the set design consists of crayon drawings. This is not even fun in an Ed Wood way and calling it the worst movie ever made would only make bad movie fans flock to see it, so I won't. A catholic father tries to keep his kids in line, one a transvestite who has sex with his dog and the other a female vocalist for a raucous punk band and cult leader of fans whom she incites to cannibalize, murder and castrate. After performing some genital mutilation and having her throat slit by her father, she takes it to the next level and wipes out humanity with radiation, only to be attacked by disco mutants. Sleaze, filth, gore, horrible filming and editing, and bad acting. John Waters would be proud. Just a barrage of in-your-face trashy and transgressive imagery and sound, all somehow taking up 75 minutes. There's two people in bandages licking each other, a man cutting himself with a razor, an endlessly long scene of a naked woman in boots against a backdrop of ocean footage pretending to swim, then interacting sexually with octopus tentacles, a guy with tattoos all over his body, a biker and a cross-dresser in a trashy bar ending in cartoonish gory violence, a really bizarre sequence with an angry female midget, a man shot in the face with a shotgun and a masked naked janitor, sci-fi-like imagery of war machinery, decaying corpses and the cycle of life, a soldier stabbing a baby, imagery of mutations and disfigurements, some avant-garde (i.e. ugly) nude performances, body-painted ladies with a dildo taunting a soldier, a blue nun undressing a man with extreme burn scars, then Annie Sprinkle licking him, and some eye surgery. If not for the extreme imagery, I would say this is Zedd's version of a politically-correct misandric, anti-war flick. Except that it also has a naked woman enjoying tentacles. |
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