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| Directed by Coke Sams; Starring Bruce Arntson, Jackie Welch, Jenny Littleton, Gailard Sartain, Mark Cabus, Mike Montgomery, Jim Varney, Denice Hicks, David Alford, Barry Scott, Matt Carlton, and Ray Thornton |
There are some films that are lost causes. They are complete wastes of time should never have been made and are not of any great use. Films like Gummo and Dune, films that I’m usually the type of person that comes to the defense of, films that are original and new, films that are like nothing I’ve seen before. The difference between those films from films of innovators like David Cronenberg and David Fincher is that at least the latter two have artistic worth and interesting stories. Gummo and Dune, as well as Existo, are senseless, mind-numbing films that are terrors to sit through and scary to think that they could have cult followings. I stood up and cheered A Clockwork Orange, Naked Lunch, and Se7en, films that, though crazed and unusual in filming, were great stories that were well directed.
As much as it pains me to go to the trouble, I shall actually tell what the film is about. Existo (Arntson) is a radical musical theatre performer that spends his shows shouting out expletives or using enlarged male genitalia as a pogo stick. He is the toast of the underground art scene in a metropolis under suppression by a right-wing religious bigwig named Glasscock (Montgomery). To stop him from ruining the political future for conservative principles with corruption, Glasscock sends a modern day Mata Hari (Littleton) to seduce Existo, taking him from his long love and founder (Welch) and causing a hopeful end to this destructive artistic freedom that Existo is advocating.
Existo is so bad that I’m nearly speechless, rarely does a film impact me so disjointedly that I cannot really stand thinking about the film any further. Earlier this year I spoke of the horrors of sitting through Detroit Rock City, this film is just as bad, if not worse. Existo is without a doubt the worst musical I’ve seen since Xanadu and the most disturbing comedy I can recall seeing. It is a terrible piece of filmmaking with a far from subtle liberal agenda with a film style that would scare off David Lynch. To put it simply, Existo is just bad.
