Final Flesh (2009)

It's nearly impossible for the cover on my chesterfield to avoid the ravages of non-stop sitting. Even when I'm sitting on its taupe surface while staring at the most egregious pieces of entertainment my eyes have ever looked at, my chesterfield cover is usually a disjointed mess by the time my remote control has been stolen (the sassy cabal of imaginary housewives that live inside my subconscious are always stealing it). Nevertheless, I couldn't help but notice that my inexplicably exalted chesterfield cover was as smooth as a baby seal's labia after I had finished partaking in an ultra private screening of Final Flesh, a movie that exists, therefore, I watched it. (Keep it to yourself fun-fact: My baby baby seal's labia's first words were, "where's the rest of my cunt?") A weird phenomenon, to be sure. But then again, I thought The Human Stain was actually about stains–you know, the kind you might accidentally come across while doing scholarly research about the architectural integrity of your average nudie booth (the majority of them, by the way, are not, I repeat, not, fireproof). In other words, what do I know? Please, however, do not ask me that what I know. My biggest fear, besides centipedes and overlong blow jobs, is other people finding out how little I know. Speaking of fear, the windy side of the door is a scary place (a seemingly endless concourse of misshapen objects who want to murder you). It's even more scary when you're using your face to look at something that features the sights and sounds that transpire within this mushy helping of must-watch buffoonery. As I looked at this, oh, let's call it a "thing," I kept worrying that the unseen entities that exist on the windy side of my door were going to break-in and pepper my organic structure with accusatory glances. You see, that's why my chesterfield cover was so unwrinkled when the cathode afterbirth had slithered back into the slimy crevice from which it came. I was so afraid of being repeatedly fingered as someone who willfully watches transgressive pornsploitation, that I sat perfectly still–you know, as not to arouse suspicion in those who languish in the realm where the wind blows undisturbed.

While it's true, the outside forces repeatedly failed to compromise my stillness as I looked in its general direction, the need to inform others what I experienced on the night I decided wade through this unruly quagmire was as strong as ever. Oh sure, it was clear to me right from the start that the mentally unsound contents contained herein were the cinematic equivalent of allowing a nearsighted badger shave your pubes. But there was no way I was going to keep the crease-free details of my Final Flesh experience all to myself.

Jarring, obtuse, discombobulating, and, I suppose, humourous in places, Final Flesh is a daring experiment that will severely test the sensual limits of your flesh psyche. Since most people aren't used to this kind of test (their flesh psyches are akin to dipping your genitals ankle deep into a bland, flavourless vat of acidic gruel), the first five minutes will probably go something like this: Well, naturally, you'll start off a little confused by what's been placed in front of you (what is this? what's going on?), then anger will begin to set in (how did I get roped into watching this?), and lastly, hate (where's my primary stabbing knife?).

However, when the first mommy doesn't serenade us but merely tells us in a calm and rational manner all about the terrible nightmare she had last month–you know, the one that involved her successfully defecating in one of her home's many psychosexual burn wards–things, much like the shards of her African American stool, start to loosen up a bit. Suddenly, all the negative feelings you were experiencing have miraculously turned into ones of a more positive nature. It will even make you reevaluate everything that occurred up until mommy's triumphant poop dream. Take me, for example, I thought bathing in the tears of neglected children was an appalling thing to do. But after some thoughtful reflection and no meditating whatsoever, my brain decided to lighten up. And besides, corrupt politicians rarely ever cry live rodents. If anything, they're the ones who bathe in angel blood on a regular basis.

Told from the perspective of four families on the day an atom bomb is about to drop, each chapter features a pre-apocalyptic mommy, a pre-apocalyptic daddy, and their sexually active pre-apocalyptic daughter. Usually opening with the three of them sitting at their kitchen or dining room table, the film meticulously chronicles their various interactions with one another during their final hours on earth.

Chapter One: "The Birth of a Raw Piece of Meat Named Mister Peterson." After finishing a holy book in an undignified location (her reading is accompanied by a stark electronic pulse), the pre-apocalyptic daughter returns to the kitchen to usher in the end of the world with the rest of her family. Instead of simply waiting for the bomb to drop in a state of docile melancholy, the pre-apocalyptic daddy decides to show his family how democracy works. Sniffing their armpits while their voting arms are razed above their heads, dad completes his lesson when he stops smelling their armpits. Declaring that there's something going on in her panties, the daughter gives birth to an egg. Feeling left out (the daughter tells her mom to basically fuck off when it comes to visitation rights), mommy pulls a cantaloupe from her loins. Stricken with a mysterious illness after breast feeding Mister Peterson (a slab of sentient meat that emerged from the daughter's vagina shortly after her mom's cantaloupe was born), the daughter needs to consume a whole can of chilly before she can throw up in the can that currently contains copious amounts of uneaten chilly.

Continuing with its prenatal fighting angle, the pre-apocalyptic father is told by the others that he's nine month's old. Wearing a bib and a diaper, he tries to enter his wife's uterus. Unfortunately, despite his daughter's words of encouragement ("get up in there!), his fully grown melon is unable to breach her womb's tiny door. With its focus on entering and re-entering wombs, and its obsession with expelling fecal matter, it's obvious that this was all about the fragility of life. Whether you're a human baby or a small piece of fruit, we all long for the security that only a well-oiled embryonic membrane can properly provide.

Chapter Two: "Eat Arm Nagasaki." Are you easily persuaded by things that are written by the hand of God? If you are, then you'll cream your demon when you come across these flesh-covered white people. The father is sporting a white sweatshirt with the phrase "porn for the people" written across the front, the daughter wears glasses, but she doesn't seem to be all that smart (she's porn smart), and the mother is too leggy to be immersed a pre-nuke sticky pickle such as this (the image of her agreeable stems being slowly roasted over an open hellfire brings much flaky wax to my respective ear canals). However, when assembled together in the same room, they somehow manage to make it not work at all. The afterlife, death, heaven, and bleeding emotions, those of you who love their erotica to question the very existence of the universe will have a field day with this chapter.

The father is addicted to phone sex, but instead of telling the pregnant art students on the other end of the line to glorify his unseen penis, he likes to tell them that he is blonde (which, by the way, he's totally not); mommy likes to converse with her left foot (the word "wisdom" is written in lipstick on her forehead for some strange reason); and the daughter is highly possessive when it comes to the ownership of heaven. Anyway, they're either wallowing in God's stomach or God's bowels, but it doesn't really matter where they are, they just want out. How does one induce God to vomit and/or shit? I have no idea. But I would love to see someone, like, say, actor Bronson Pinchot or Judy Greer's character from Archer attempt to masturbate to the sight of a fake nerdy pornstar doing either of those things.

Favourite ball-related lines uttered during chapter two: "I want a separate tombstone for my nuts" and, of course, "Rape the shame from my balls."

Chapter three: "The Entire Universe Has Been Killed in a Spanish Boating Accident." Three more people awaken from some kind of slumberful while seated at a table. This time, are you sitting down? the table is covered with leaves, and not only that, dead leaves! Trapped in nature's infinite expanse, the pre-apocalyptic father figure gets up and declares to his fellow family members, "I've had it up to here consciousness." I hear you, man. The world is full of too much malarky to be awake for most of the day. If you avert your gaze, you won't notice that mommy and daddy both have a skull tattoos on their backs. And judging by what they do next, it would seem that intercourse, or, as it's called in this case, "boning," is performed by mashing backs their backs together in a veiled attempt to achieve corporeal satisfaction. I wonder if this makes sense to anyone, because I'm starting to feel lost.

Luckily, their pre-apoocalyptic daughter comes along just in the nick of time to bring some much needed normalcy to the proceedings when her right hand is transformed into an entity known as "Miss Pearl." If anyone's seen Evil Dead 2 or Idle Hands, you'll know that hand possession is quite common in popular culture. In other words, seeing the daughter character, her rock hard body showing no signs of pornographic wear and tear, flaunting her haunted hand undaunted was one of the few things that made any sense.

Shaking a plastic container full of meat, stabbing conch shells with turkey basters, using an eraser to undo unwanted pregnancies, daring folks to give birth doggiestyle, killing dinner with karate, and wrongly assuming you have more than one dick, Final Flesh is the Party Doll A Go-Go! for the Friendster generation. While forcing porno actors to recite asinine dialogue with deadpan perfection is nothing new, Vernon Chatman (Wonder Showzen) takes the moron manipulating genre places Rinse Dream could only dream of going. Watching people try to pleasure themselves to Nightdreams is hilarious, watching people try to do the same while in the presence of Final Flesh is downright horrifying.

Even though the word "better" has pretty much lost all meaning over the past couple of years, the final chapter of Final Flesh–Chapter four: "Who the Hell is Proxy? My Name is Paulie"–is probably better than anything David Lynch (The Grandmother) has made over the last twenty years. Bathed in darkness, the bomb is getting closer to falling, and this family of neo-beatniks are starting to lose their grip on reality. Moaning in unison by the window, the black-clad, brunette trio get their thick thighs and ankle tattoos all twisted in a bunch over their impending doom. While the sight of the mom smearing a banana all over her daughter's chest might stir some genitals, I was actually more turned on by the fact that the daughter uses the word, "forthwith," than anything involving smooshed fruit or sautéed light fixtures.

My favourite scene in the Final Flesh universe is the one where the neo-beatnik mommy scrapes the neo-beatnik daddy's cock of cheese with a cheese grater. If that wasn't enough, the bits of cheese that fall away from his irregular penis land on the bed to spell out the word, "nature."

After an optical suicide attempt is diverted to LaGuardia, a close proximity walkie talkie dinner conversation has run its course, a dire warning to the owner of a Honda Opulent is performed in blackface, and when the hole where dice-based oral sex usually excels has been shut for good ("my mouth is closed for business"), it's time to put a fork in this undertaking. Fittingly, it ends with a Bergmanesque examination of life and death ("we're ghosts in foetel form"). The latter is dealt with the wedding between two dead bodies ("I now pronounce you cadaver and corpse"), and the former has something to do with apples and chickens ("death is a prenatal memory"). The sensation you feel as you watch Final Flesh is tantamount to what an infant, toddler, or placenta drenched baby giraffe must go through when he or she starts walking for the first time, as it is unlike anything that has ever existed. In the end, we're all human openings searching for suitable companionship, and I am sort of glad some of my openings were able to experience Final Flesh in all its festering, fissure testing glory.

uploaded by DragCity

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