Buttcrack (1998) — Triskaidekafiles

BUTTCRACK

WRITER: Jim Larsen

DIRECTOR: Jim Larsen

STARRING: Doug Ciskowski as Brian

Caleb Kreischer as Wade

Kathy Wittes as Annie

Rob Hayward as Ken

Cindy Geary as Wade's Sister

Laurent Minassian as Hank the Redneck

Mojo Nixon as Preacher Man Bob

QUICK CUT: When Wade passes away, his sister just can’t seem to let go.

THE MORGUE

Brian - A generally nice guy, caring, and friendly, to all. But when push comes to shove, he has a temper, and will take action.

Annie - Brian’s girlfriend, and your average love interest, with zero tolerance for disgusting men with no drive.

Wade - Brian’s roommate who sits around all day, plays Atari, and is very slovenly. He can’t seem to keep his pants up, and life conspires against him to make sure he shows his buttcrack to anyone around. Also, he never takes any responibility for anything, and thinks everyone else is to blame.

Ken - Brian’s best friend, who looks out for his interests, and is trying to get Wade out a bit more. He is very into everything Preacherman Bob says, and will share his wisdom at the drop of a baseball cap.

Preacherman Bob - The local preacher…duh…and he is a very animated, excited sort of preacher, who looks over his flock.

It’s a Buttcrack, Patty Black, give Lloyd Kaufman a loan!

TRISK ANALYSIS: Welcome back, Triskelions! November begins with...uh. Okay. Look, somehow, I thought a movie called "Buttcrack" about an evil undead zombified ass, as the movie copy describes, would be fun to take a look at. The movie barely delivers anything of the sort, but we'll get to that. Now, let's take a deep look at Buttcrack, and I apologise.

The movie opens up on Brian, nervously waiting for his friend Ken to arrive. The phone rings, but it's for his roommate, Wade. And Wade is...somethin'. He's shrill, he's bothersome, he only cares about playing Atari...and he instantly shows us his buttcrack because he is physically incapable of pulling his pants up.

So, at least the movie does what it says on the tin.

Only the finest of cherry Kool Aid for you, my dear.

Ken arrives, and hands Brian the engagement ring, so Brian can propose to his girlfriend, Annie. Unfortunately, while the couple tries to have a nice, romantic evening, Wade keeps interupting, and showing everyone his ass. Annie is...not happy, and takes off.

Wade continues to be disgusting and annoying everyone in Brian's life for the next 20 minutes of movie. Brian reschedules to have Annie over again, and Ken agrees that he'll drag Buttcrack out to a movie so the two can have a night together in peace.

Unfortunately, on the way to the movie, Ken asks Wade why he doesn't keep his pants up, or wear a belt, or ANYthing to spare us all. And Wade assumes Ken must be gay because he's checking out his butt. So he demands to get out of the car right then and there, and he will walk home, because he refuses to be in a car with a sicko.

Yay, homophobia!

Ken would have picked him back up, or driven back to warn Brian and Annie, but wouldn't you know it? His car died right then and there.

Wade arrives back home just as the couple are dancing in the kitchen post proposal, and he butts right in to dance with them. Annie falls to the floor, and gets such a face full of ass, that she throws up all over the floor, and then Wade, before rushing out the door. Wade is so self absorbed, he blames Annie for being so gross.

He heads to take a bath and clean up, and plugs in a clock radio, playing very loudly, to have some music. Brian loses his shit and storms into the bathroom to shut it off. The radio slips out of Brian's hands and right into the tub, electrocutining Wade.

Everyone believes Brian's story that it was an accident, otherwise this would be a very different, and much longer movie. Or possibly shorter, if the cops were feeling frisky!

So we cut to the funeral, presided over by Father Mojo Nixon...er, Preacherman Bob, and he is a real "brimstone and hellfayre" sort. Very animated, VERY fast talking. It’s a bit much.

Following the funeral, Wade's sister, whom we have heard has supposed voodoo powers, comes over to Brian, and throws dirt in his face. She does it several more times, chanting Buttcrack, and says that if anyone says Buttcrack 12 times with only one breath, Wade shall return to torment Brian.

...That is a weirdly specific curse.

We oughta just video tape this and play it back in slow motion

Long story short, Annie rants about Wade shortly afterwards, and somehow manages to enact that very specific curse.

So Wade digs his way out of the grave, and somehow...we don't see his buttcrack. His pants are pulled up and or his shirt is covering it. You would think, if ANY moment in the movie demands there be buttcrack, it would be here.

But we do see it shortly, as his pants have slipped once he's walking home on the road. A guy drives by to taunt Wade, but when he gets a good look at the buttcrack, he starts bleeding from the mouth, like it was some kind of bleeding Medus-ass.

Meanwhile, Preacherman Bob shows up at Brian's to check on how everyone is holding up. He preaches at his Kengregation for a bit, and Annie decides, hey, let's get married right now.

So they tie the knot, and celebrate by dancing. Which is Wade's cue to return home, and somehow go unnoticed as he goes to take a bath and get cleaned up, what with being covered in dirt and worms and shit.

Dude, be careful, the last time you did that did NOT go so well for you.

But he finally joins in on the dance part, and uh...people are rather surprised. Preacherman Bob asks if he's okay, and he seems fine, although maybe a bit weird. Even weirder than usual.

Everyone else has a bit of a conference to decide what to do. Bob offers his spiritual council to kill Wade again and put him back in the earth where he belongs.

So, Brian bashes him in the head with a frying pan. Repeatedly. Just to be sure.

While they transport him back to the cemetery, Wade stubbornly keeps coming back to life, but eventually they do manage to get him back into the ground. Whether he’s alive or dead, is a bit up for grabs.

Once they leave, Wade crawls BACK up out of the grave, and his sister is there. She stabs him in the chest, to drive home the point that he is not alive and...

"You have to go get you're revenge!" "Awwwh...", like he’s a kid being told he can’t play video games until he eats his vegetables.

Everyone heads back to Brian's after a burial well done, and that's when the dude who started bleeding from the mouth at the sight of crack shows up, to start attacking people.

Annie looks at his ass and becomes infected with the buttcrack zombie curse, and I can't believe I just wrote that. She attacks Brian, biting him good.

Wade arrives, and there is just a lot of biting and fighting as everyone gets infected and angry and...yeah, it's weird.

Preacherman Bob shows up and shoots all the butt zombies dead, saving the day.

After fulfilling his revenge, Wade walks back to the cemetery and collapses into his grave, like he's some sort of Buttcrow completing his mission.

Preacherman Bob shows up to take care of Wade's sister, for tampering in Wade's afterlife, and all the damage it caused.

And instead of ending there like a decent movie, which this is decidedly not, we jump ahead a year, to a bunch of folklore junkies showing up at Brian's grave.

"He died, and shortly after, a bunch of other people died!" is a weirdly vague sort of folklore to have built up, with no real connection. We're just supposed to roll with it, I guess. This all leads to an end stinger of Wade’s hand coming out of the ground once more.

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: Well, it looks all right. I can see all the glory of a buttcrack. More than I would write.

Audio; Sound is fine. Like the rest of these three packs from Troma, they’re crammed onto a single disc, and they suffer, but are just fine.

Sound Bite: "The Bible doesn't come with zombie resurrections!” I’m sorry, but the Bible has THE most famous zombie resurrections!

Body Count: It LOOKS good, but like…60% of them are Wade being killed repeatedly.

1 - After 24 long buttcrack filled minutes, Wade is finally electrocuted.

2 - Random driver gets buttcracked to death

3 - Wade is killed aqain with a frying pan

4 - And again with a shovel.

5 - Annie becomes a victim of a buttcrack

6 - And then Annie eats Brian

7 - Friend looks at a buttcrack and his face explodes

8 - Brian gets choked out by Wade

9 - Preacherman Bob shoots Wade dead. AGAIN.

10 - Preacherman Bob takes out Wade's sister

Best Corpse: Look, just by sheer volume, I’m gonna say Wade gets the prize.

Blood Type - C+: There is not much blood in here, but there is one random gag that is all of a half second, where Ken’s face explodes after being Buttcracked. It looks great, I think.

Sex Appeal: Nothing I can think of here.

Drink Up! Every time Wade imminent arrival is heralded by his singing.

Movie Review: There’s no easy way to say this. This movie is rough. At an hour long, it somehow manages to feel like a slog. You gotta WORK at making an hour long movie feel like a chore! The plot is absurd, it’s basically an excuse to show buttcrack as much as possible, and it’s somewhere between ridiculous and eye rolling. But, it IS more coherent, and at least has a narrative, which is more than some other movies we’ve looked at. I started to vibe with it a bit more on second watch, since I knew more about what I was in for, and could just float along with the absurdity. And really, the movie knows it is ridiculous, so it’s hard to fault it for doing exactly what it wants. Two out of five handfulls of dirt.

Entertainment Value: Mojo Nixon is the clear star of this category. That dude throws everything into his performance of Preacherman Bob, and has so much energy. The rest of the cast should reach his level. Seeing just HOW BAD Wade is going to get, to the point of Brian snapping, is fun to watch unfold. But that comes with his aggressively annoying personality. It can be fun to watch, if you’re down for this kind of silliness, but it’s a bit much. Two out of five proposals.