If a movie sets out to arouse disgust and successfully achieves it does that make it a successful movie? While Queerguru is still musing on that one we can confidently affirm that our normal movie accompaniment of popcorn and diet coke was pushed to one side pretty quick in this nightmarish 90 minutes by Gem Deger.
Spoiler alerts and trigger warnings are pretty indistinguishable. While fans of neither the necessity is sometimes inescapable. So let us just say that there is a disturbing reveal towards the end of the movie that many viewers may prefer not to see. It provides reason and meaning to all that has preceded. Watch with caution. Or maybe don’t watch at all. Demir or D (played by Gem Deger) wakes up to the confusion of amnesia. Yet somehow, he has achieved his dream and landed up living with his hot Hollywood fantasy man Andrew (Austin Chunn). It’s not quite perfect though, judging by the drugs and bodies piling up, the projectile vomiting bug that seems to spread between characters and recurrent bouts of necrophilia. His flailing grip on reality is solidified by an exchange between him and Andrew where he asks “What the fuck is going on?” only to be told “You can never be sure when the real world becomes the Videodrome”. Heavily influenced by B movies, schlock horror, and a desire to establish a cult movie sensibility Playdurizm hovers between messed up and just plain messy. The visuals have a neon quality that gives the green vomit a real pop. The soundscape falls somewhere in between the music a New Age shop plays to shoo out dawdling customers so that the owner can make it to hot yoga or a 1970s low-budget sci-fi. |
The stomach-churning confusion does end up making a point in the reveal, although an unpalatable one. Enjoyability is the exact opposite of this director’s intent. On that rarefied point, this movie is an accomplishment. That, however, is going to be a difficult one for an audience to embrace with enthusiasm
Trigger alert. You have been warned
