I try not to shout out studios so much on here, cause its the directors, writers, actors, and crew that make movie magic. But Magenta Light studios has been trying to break in for a while now. In the past the issues were production quality, which makes their stuff just look 2nd rate compared to any better studio with more resources. However, Appofeniacs is the first time I really saw a quality jump with the story vision they’ve already shown a real eye for. Here’s hoping for more good things to come, resulting in more stuff for audiences to see besides big studio mandated Cooper’s Hawk filmmaking.
I didn’t know what an Appofeniac was, but it’s a perfect title for this film. This is a series of random stories: first we’ve got Uber driver Texas Tim (Will Brandt) accepting having sex with Poppy (Simran Jehani) while cuckolding her husband Banks (Michael Abbott Jr.). Then there’s Lazzy (Paige Searcy) working in a smoke shop when a viral video of “her” freaks her out. And finally, Clinto Binto (Sean Gunn) is a cosplayer making great sh*t that Duke (Aaron Holliday) really wants to buy, but can’t afford cause he’s badly in debt.
Christ Marrs Piliero is the writer/director of Appofeniacs, the latest in a long line of music video to feature movie directors. That means this is likely his best thing, and I can see why. For all the crappy Pulp Fiction knockoffs, this one’s at least built around an interesting conceit. Piliero connects each of his tales together like Pulp did with a common through line. Or am I an appofeniac? On the surface it seems clear, but each tale has a blast confirmation biasing its characters. Is what is happening real? Or is it in their heads? This movie isn’t nearly the revelation Tarantino’s was, but it has a blast really boldly flirting with the taste line, especially in the Lazzy story and how that freaks her out when maybe it shouldn’t.
And when that’s not working, Piliero gets gross. Appofeniacs goes hard for bloodletting and gross out gags when it writes itself into a corner. It’s so over the top most of the scenes can only be played for laughs. The cuckolding seen goes so deep into Banks’s vinegar stroke you can’t help but chuckle at how committed he is to getting off. I couldn’t wait for a cosplaying savant to have a series of weapons ready for real combat, which deliver and then some. There’s great callback blood explosions that resemble the funnier parts of Tropic Thunder. That’s at least for the good guys. But if you’re bad? Then the real painful gross out stuff awaits you, like watching a body react to that super super glue and trying to remove it, which I can’t ever unsee.
Appofeniacs posits a new world is upon us. It’s certainly an important reminder to me to double check everything, and not to be too quick to judge, think first and talk 2nd. Otherwise Clinto Binto’s gonna have a thermal sword that will stab and cook me from the insides till I smell so delicious I’m gonna want to eat myself. Ewww.