The Sore Loser . Weekly Alibi . 04-09-97

The Sore Loser

DIRECTED BY: J. Michael McCarthy

REVIEWED: 04-09-97

Cartoonist J. Michael McCarthy wrote, produced and directed this wigged-out southern-fried J.D. flick, and the man himself premiered it at the Fabulous Dingo Bar recently, courtesy of Brad at Wavy Brain. Jack Oblivian plays an alien juvenile delinquent who was "allowed to terrorize the South in 1954." Sent here to kill 12 people, he only managed to take out nine before his time on earth ran out and he went home a loser. He returns to earth in the present to kill those last three folks and redeem himself, but discovers that things aren't quite like he remembers them. After killing a store clerk, Oblivian teams up with Mike Maker, a comic book-loving, murderous Korean war vet who was given a transfusion of Oblivian's blood in '54 and hasn't aged since. The two kill the nurse who's been draining Mike's blood for 40 years and hit the road, meeting a psycho chick (Kerine Elkins) headed home from prison. Kerine joins our boys on their mission, slaughtering her parents and inadvertently bringing the number of victims to 13, which sends Oblivian off to see his boss (sexploitation producer Dave Friedman!). Dave tells Oblivian that he must kill another victim (Dave's choice) or stay on earth forever. Soon afterwards, Mike stumbles across former squeeze D'Lana Tunnell--and you know she's gotta be Dave's choice. From there on out, things really go nuts, as Men in Black Guitar Wolf pursue our heroes and a naked angel hands out cans of Schlitz. The acting is uniformly terrible but fun (with the exception of Kerine Elkins' gratingly half-assed Tura Satana shtick), and the flick features some of the best and most colorful 16 millimeter stuff I've ever seen--plus lots of cool dialogue ("Lahs! Lahs! Ah'm tahred of these lahs!") and naked girls. But by the time it was over, I was kinda pissed off by the overwhelming hipness of it all. See, I really like that McCarthy laments cool things lost (the drive-in, EC Comics, etc.), and I'm sure he loved that stuff as a kid (like I did) and still loves it (like I do), but since it's all stuff that "alterno-types" are supposed to dig, it comes off like hipness overkill. Recommended just the same. (Big Broad Guerrilla Monster)

--Scott Phillips

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