Sins of the Fleshapoids (plus The Secret of Wendel Samson and The Craven Sluck)

1965-1967

Rating: n/r

Plot: Sins of the Fleshapoids takes place in a far distant future after a nuclear holocaust. The titular Fleshapoids are the robot slaves of the survivors. The titular sins involve Fleshapoids falling in love in copulating. In The Secret of Wendel Samson, the titular protagonist struggles with his sexuality. And I don't really know what The Craven Sluck is about.

The Craven Sluck? What a title! These three shorts (they add up to an hour and a half of mayhem) were artfully constructed by the Kuchar twins, writer/director/actor siblings who were apparently an influence on John Waters. They're fascinating little cheapos, like B-movie art films. There's a nifty mix of deranged ideas and the sort of filmmaking where you can sort of see an artistic vision that isn't quite allowed to surface due to the budget constraints or general ineptitude. With Sins, you get the longest title screen I've ever seen and some opening credits with drawings that look like they're straight from Napolean Dynamite's notebook. Then, the movie, and you quickly realize that this movie is going nowhere quickly. There's an enthusiastic narrator who makes the whole thing sound like it's a documentary, but the characters don't talk at all. Well, that's not true. They talk but not audibly. Instead, the Kuchars utilize (first I've ever seen this) talking bubbles! You know, those comic strip bubbles with wonderfully written gems like "Obey me or I'll wet you and make you rust!" Or, check out this great dialogue:

Guy Fleshapoid: We are robots yet we are in love.
Girl Fleshapoid: Let us now make love.

I know what you're thinking, and yes, that's pretty hot on its own. But the ensuing sex scene with finger lightning? Oh, my! The most beautiful bit of narration in this, so poetic that it'll make your heart melt: "Beings of nuts and bolds would feel the pangs of love in their aluminum hearts." The Kuchars sure are good with costumes. I really like the number that a character named Gianbela wore--a woman's bejeweled hat (he's a man, by the way), leather gloves, my grandmother's vest, a flower coming out the side of his head like he's a Dr. Seuss character. There's also a character (an astronaut, I believe) who is wearing a football uniform (an astronaut suit, I believe). There's a great scene with a fruit dump dance and a naked Fleshapoid with Adam and Eve-style giant leaves and paper flowers covering the naughty bits. But my favorite scenes involve Xar (played by the late Bob Cowan who also narrated), the Fleshapoid with helmet who makes these really jerky movements that made me wonder if he was supposed to be broken. I think it was just Cowan doing robot movements. If nothing else, Sins taught me about what paradise is--fruit and fish baskets, Clark bars, and guys eating ice cream without a shirt.

Wendel Samson's tale, after I watched the whole thing, was still a secret to me. The characters do talk in this one although it might be with the worst dubbing I've ever heard. It's like they added reverb for some reason. This has some of the worst dialogue ever, but the editing might be worse. You get a characters inviting each other to have coffee before an abrupt transition and a character saying "Boy, this coffee is great" before an abrupt transition to a scene where there's a guy without a shirt enjoying coffee in a bed. Kuchar's must like filming shirtless men enjoying desserts and beverages. But who doesn't? Speaking of abrupt, the soundtrack to all three of these films are very strange. There are dizzying changes from genre to genre. My favorite bit of music in this was this wildly trippy moog stuff with Superman television samples thrown in. And no, it didn't really match what was going on in the movie, a scene that led up to [Spoiler Alert!] a maddening scene with a firing squad and some cartoon laughter.

The Craven Sluck might be my favorite film title ever. I think I decided that the Kuchars were making a comedy, but I can't be sure. This one has a narrator (also Cowan) who introduces the cast over pictures of a pin-up. I like how he says marmoset. He even spells it for us and lets us it's just like the South American tree monkey. Sluck's got pooping dogs and people drinking out of toilets, and it ends with some bitchin' flying saucer effects that you would not have expected had I not spoiled the whole thing for you. My favorite scene: the main character (the Sluck? What's a sluck?) says, "It's been years since I've had someone I could talk intellitigently [sic] to" with the next shot being her on her hands and knees bouncing up and down and displaying some rather oppressively trembling udders.