FILM GUTTER REVIEWS - ​PERVERT! (2005)

Dir. Jonathan Yudis, USA, 81 minS

Come on, how on earth can you resist a title like that?

If films like Maniac and Snuff have taught us anything over the years, it’s that a nice lurid moniker can be quite the draw. In fact, just weeks ago our look at Brutal proved that very point. And that’s certainly the case with this 2005 offering – it even closes with a practically irresistible exclamation mark. I do have a hazy memory of catching this on TV a long time ago – I can't even recall whether it was a Channel 5 job or the Horror Channel –  but the details were anything but clear in my mind for this revisit.

Anyway, having rewatched through Jonathan Yudis’s 2005 offering, lurid feels like exactly the word. Pervert! is the story of James, a washed-up youngster who arrives at his father Hezekiah’s house in the absolute middle of nowhere in the desert to stay for a while. He’s pretty surprised to find his dad now living with drop-dead gorgeous young blonde Cheryl – as it turns out he's paying for her company – and it’s not long before a romance begins to bloom between the James and Cheryl underneath Hezekiah’s nose. However there’s much more to the story than this alone, as it’s not long before Cheryl turns up dead, and a number of his father’s other 'lady visitors' follow suit. The suspicion falls on Hezekiah – especially when James finds his strange ‘art workshop’ and the meat puppets he is making at the bottom of the garden, not to mention the fact James begins to wonder if his dad was the one who killed his mother. The story really comes to a head when nurse Patty arrives to care for Hezekiah, but she turns out to be anything but what we had expected, and the truth of the deaths is revealed and a dark voodoo curse is finally unveiled.

Now, much of that probably sounds patently ridiculous, and to no small extent it is. But when you throw in the added element that this is a Russ Meyer homage, then suddenly things kick up to another level. And as a homage, this thing is gloriously, bizarrely pitch-perfect, loaded with all the elements that Meyer was known for – gratuitous nudity, absurd storylines, plenty of blood and guts – and hitting all the right notes with its parody. The final section – with James’s penis leaving his body and going on a murderous spree of its own – is flat-out absurd but equally absolutely hilarious. The one line that killed me was this the homicidal member was actually a female of the species, but then again I don't know what else I should have expected...

Make no mistakes, there’s nothing high art about this movie, but as a brainless way to while away 90 minutes it’s got plenty of merits. There are lots of laughs, the performances are suitably hammed up, the music is ideal for the theme, the look and feel of it captures much of its inspiration perfectly and it’s bound to raise a smile in any fan of the Meyer movies. It’s in bad taste, but then it would really lose something if it wasn’t.

No doubt there will be plenty who don’t get this one – it’s unapologetically silly, the nudity is overblown, some of the shots and segues feel really random and as I say the finale is patently absurd. But there is an overriding sense that everyone involved is having great fun with the material, and the parody is really delivered with an affection for the source material – as any good parody should be. It doesn’t feel sniping, or mealy-mouthed, or mocking as so many current parodies and spoofs do.

With all that said, this one decidedly was for me, and I had a blast watching it. As a bit of light relief from the usual bleakness of Film Gutter, it was fantastic entertainment.

RATING: 8/10. Comedy isn’t easy to do well, and I think parody is probably even harder to do well. I think that Pervert! shows the right amount of affection for the material that inspired it, whilst also poking fun at it in a knowing and exaggerated way. The performances are all on-point, and director Yudis captures the very spirit of Russ Meyer in what feels like a real personal pet project. It’s unlikely to live all that long in the memory – given that I forgot so much from the first viewing – but for a film to give you a chuckle put a smile on your face this is a good bet. A worthy 8/10 for a heartily fun time.

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