*WARNING* This review features major *SPOILERS* Don't read this particular comment unless you've seen this film first.
Shot in chintzy, unwieldy hand-held camera fashion from 1979 to 1981 on cheap, grainy, extremely unsightly all scratched-up Super 8mm film stock with the sound and dialogue poorly looped in post-production, this simply horrendous artsy fartsy college short film school project finally crept onto video in 1985. Of course, none of this would mean jack if it wasn't for the fact that this hour long abomination stars a gawky, pudgy, insufferably whiny and unappealing Madonna as bisexual bad girl Bruna, a totally obnoxious and unsympathetic skank with a loyal cult of male and female lovers who falls for a moody, sullen, intensely unlikable hipster philosophy student college drop-out slacker jerk (a highly annoying Jeremy Pattnosh, who also co-wrote the pompous, abysmal script and sings a majority of the atrocious tunes featured on the grating soundtrack). Bruna winds up being raped by her overly possessive lovers, which means that the viewer gets to see Madonna's normal-sized breasts prior to her obscenely overdone boob job she got for the pathetic documentary "Truth or Dare." Worse yet, Bruna suffers further indignities when she's assaulted and molested in a ratty diner bathroom by loutish, grossly overbearing, motor-mouthed, wholly repugnant and irredeemable middle-aged creep Raymond Hall (a hilariously seedy and degenerate Charles Kurtz, who's the sole actor in this misbegotten bomb who brings any vigor and conviction to his part). Bruna, assisted by Pattnosh and her lovers, abduct Hall and ritualistically carve the bastard up at a crazed Satanic party which concludes with the deranged participants drinking Hall's blood and consuming his flesh.
Attempting to explore modern-day urban angst, despair and paranoia, with a marked emphasis on sexual deviancy and seething amorality run hideously amok, this stinker hits an infuriatingly steady succession of sour off-key notes throughout: a loud, shrill, abrasively confrontational tone which quickly wares out its welcome, a crummy visual texture that's sheer murder on the eyes, several protracted sub-MTV musical montage sequences (the film hits its nadir when Pattnosh serenades Bruna in a grimy, graffiti-littered tunnel with an awful impromptu rap song called "Demon Lover"), uniformly foul and disgusting characters (Kurtz's memorably vile sicko is actually the only remotely endearing person in the whole movie!), a murky, half-hearted script which goes tediously overboard on pretentious blather, an irritating Hispanic narrator who makes asinine rambling comments at acerbating regular intervals ("I mean, he even had an attitude, like a cat who had eaten a canary or a pigeon or something"), shoddy production values, and occasional horribly affected fancy-pants cinematic flourishes (freeze frames, slow motion, archly elaborate wipes and dissolves). It comes as no surprise that Madonna, who was allegedly paid a whopping $100 bucks for her troubles, tried unsuccessfully to sue the filmmakers in order to prevent this dreck from being released. It's a genuine pity that she failed.
Shot in chintzy, unwieldy hand-held camera fashion from 1979 to 1981 on cheap, grainy, extremely unsightly all scratched-up Super 8mm film stock with the sound and dialogue poorly looped in post-production, this simply horrendous artsy fartsy college short film school project finally crept onto video in 1985. Of course, none of this would mean jack if it wasn't for the fact that this hour long abomination stars a gawky, pudgy, insufferably whiny and unappealing Madonna as bisexual bad girl Bruna, a totally obnoxious and unsympathetic skank with a loyal cult of male and female lovers who falls for a moody, sullen, intensely unlikable hipster philosophy student college drop-out slacker jerk (a highly annoying Jeremy Pattnosh, who also co-wrote the pompous, abysmal script and sings a majority of the atrocious tunes featured on the grating soundtrack). Bruna winds up being raped by her overly possessive lovers, which means that the viewer gets to see Madonna's normal-sized breasts prior to her obscenely overdone boob job she got for the pathetic documentary "Truth or Dare." Worse yet, Bruna suffers further indignities when she's assaulted and molested in a ratty diner bathroom by loutish, grossly overbearing, motor-mouthed, wholly repugnant and irredeemable middle-aged creep Raymond Hall (a hilariously seedy and degenerate Charles Kurtz, who's the sole actor in this misbegotten bomb who brings any vigor and conviction to his part). Bruna, assisted by Pattnosh and her lovers, abduct Hall and ritualistically carve the bastard up at a crazed Satanic party which concludes with the deranged participants drinking Hall's blood and consuming his flesh.
Attempting to explore modern-day urban angst, despair and paranoia, with a marked emphasis on sexual deviancy and seething amorality run hideously amok, this stinker hits an infuriatingly steady succession of sour off-key notes throughout: a loud, shrill, abrasively confrontational tone which quickly wares out its welcome, a crummy visual texture that's sheer murder on the eyes, several protracted sub-MTV musical montage sequences (the film hits its nadir when Pattnosh serenades Bruna in a grimy, graffiti-littered tunnel with an awful impromptu rap song called "Demon Lover"), uniformly foul and disgusting characters (Kurtz's memorably vile sicko is actually the only remotely endearing person in the whole movie!), a murky, half-hearted script which goes tediously overboard on pretentious blather, an irritating Hispanic narrator who makes asinine rambling comments at acerbating regular intervals ("I mean, he even had an attitude, like a cat who had eaten a canary or a pigeon or something"), shoddy production values, and occasional horribly affected fancy-pants cinematic flourishes (freeze frames, slow motion, archly elaborate wipes and dissolves). It comes as no surprise that Madonna, who was allegedly paid a whopping $100 bucks for her troubles, tried unsuccessfully to sue the filmmakers in order to prevent this dreck from being released. It's a genuine pity that she failed.