When I started this review I expected it to be one blog post that nobody read, but now it’s stretched out to six blog posts that nobody’s reading.  Amazing stuff.

But I feel it’s time for a shake-up.  We’re an hour into the film and I’ve probably exhausted the humour of simply describing each scene.  Fortunately, as Chuck Palahniuk says, “everything you write is an autobiography”…so I’ve fed the first 7 scenes into a state-of-the-art AI in order to generate a completely authentic simulation of the film’s director, Bill Zebub, to discuss the next instalment of Dickshark…

Me: Bill, thank you for joining me tonight.  I see that you’ve opened scene 8 with a topless woman in stockings, was there a reason that you chose that as the dominant motif in your work?

Bill: Er…

Me: Once again, we see the female character is unnamed, partially clothed and being groped by a fully-clothed male, your character, Dick.  Was it your intention for Dickshark to be such a powerful statement about the objectification of women and the gender imbalance too often inherent in films?

Bill: Um…

Me: The visual imagery is re-enforced by your continued use of no-name heavy metal bands and the background, unless I’m mistaken, is the location from your two previous picnics and one dickshark attack.  Did you feel that, as an auteur, you had to make a statement about the repetitiveness of mainstream studio output?

Bill: I…

Me: But let’s move straight on to the opening dialogue of scene 8, “This should make them nice and perky.  That way if he has any ability to defend himself these will distract him. It’s a distraction…so distracting”.  That’s a line that’s really up there with the all-time great movie quotes, but what message were you trying to get across to your audience?

Bill: Well, um…

Me: That’s great, but obviously what you’re doing is setting up surely the most powerful conversation we’ve yet seen in this film where you accuse the woman of anti-Semitism, because she sarcastically refers to you as ‘Einstein’.  Sandwiched, as it is, between a discussion of lesbian rape and the death of a woman at the hands(?) of mutated giant spider, was this your attempt to show that any film can deal with such serious topics if it gets the context and framing right?

Bill: Ah, now…

Me: What comes next, though, is surely your tour de force; you have Dick dismiss the urban legend that we only use 10% of our brains and complain that the belief that this is the case is the fault of the newspapers, for dumbing things down for their audience, “people who have a 3rd grade reading level and no real education”.  This is the opening for your lengthy monologue, which starts as a discussion of the origin of the “10%” myth and then expands to take in modern society’s desire for quick fixes in all areas, from dieting through education.  You obviously have a powerful need, as a director, to educate your audience, so how did you come up with the brilliant idea of having the camera, rather than focusing on you, the speaker, to instead switch between your co-star’s groin, breasts and buttocks?

Bill: Errrr…

Me: Now, as a viewer, one of the most fascinating aspects of this film is your playfulness with time.  In places key sections of the plot – such as Rachel’s murder – are dealt with entirely off-screen and are dealt with in just a sentence or two, in other places you leave in long pauses, tricking the viewer into thinking that you were too half-arsed to edit out missed cues, but…

Bill: You see…

Me: If you could just let me finish…then you deliberately slow time right down, making pointless shots stretch out to what seems like infinity. Almost a deliberate distortion of the film maker’s normal purpose of entertaining the viewer.  There’s a prime example in scene 8 where super slow motion is used with a close up to create almost a claustrophobic effect, leaving the viewer time to ask…

Bill: What I…

Me: …when did the actress remove her knickers between the conversation and the 30 or 40 seconds you spend zoomed in on her crotch.

Bill: …

Me: Sorry, Bill, but it seems we’re out of time.  I’m gutted that we haven’t been able to cover Colin’s discovery of Vanna’s body, or the film’s 2nd giant-mutant-spider rape, but I’d like to thank you for coming in today to talk to me, and I think we’re all looking forward to scene 9, which I’m sure will be a smashing little scene.

Bill: SYNTAX ERROR AT LINE 40

Me: Sorry, Bill, we’re off air now.

The review continues here