Directed by Tyler Cornack
Written by Tyler Cornack & Ryan Koch
Starring Tyler Cornack, Tyler Rice & Shelby Dash
Running time 1 hour and 40 minutes
MPAA rated ???
Classic joke structure is as follows: the Set-Up does exactly what the name implies, giving you all the information you should need to understand the joke and the Punchline provokes a laugh, usually through wordplay or by subverting expectations in some other way.
A man goes up to an aerobics instructor and asks "Can you teach me to do a split?". The instructor says "Maybe. How flexible are you?" and the man replies "I'm only available on Tuesdays."
Of course there are as many alternative joke forms as there are variations on that one, though that's generally how it goes: Set-Up = normal, Punchline = wacky.
Based on a short made for the Tiny Cinema youtube channel, Butt Boy attempts to reverse the traditional joke format by having the Set-Up be eye-rollingly silly while playing the aftermath completely straight. As far as execution of the concept goes I'd say they nailed it, though that doesn't make it "good". I can't believe I'm about to say this about a movie where a man sucks objects into a parallel dimension through his asshole: this movie is kind of boring.
In the short, a man (played by co-writer / director Tyler Cornack) discovers during a prostate exam that he quite likes having things inserted into his rear and proceeds to put anything that should hove into his view right up there: a bar of soap, the television remote and ultimately his own dog, Rocky. The short, which runs just one minute, ends with the man's wife out front of their home, calling for the ostensibly missing Rocky. The feature follows these exact story beats, fluffed with some additional details: the man's name is Chip, his wife is Ann (Shelby Dash). Their marriage is as boring and unfulfilling as Chip's corporate I.T. job. Etc.
Then, it begins to elaborate on the premise: Chip graduates from small dogs to putting an infant up his tailpipe, shortly after which he realizes that he's a monster. Cut to ten years later and Chip is now an established member of his local A.A. group, pretending his addiction is to alcohol. He's even sponsoring the group's newest member, police detective Russell Fox (Tyler Rice). When something in their getting-to-know-you dinner causes Chip to relapse, he's right back to seat-eating everything in sight, culminating in a missing child at Chip's job during Bring Your Kid to Work Day. Of course Russell is the detective assigned to the case and it doesn't take long for Chip to become his primary suspect.
That's the central conflict of Butt Boy: a greasy detective trying to get clean and his dull-as-dishwater A.A. sponsor on opposite ends of the search for a missing kid (who, remember, the sponsor has tucked up his tuchus). How could this possibly be boring? Well for one thing, it takes almost half the film's run time to get there somehow and that plodding pace never really picks up steam. This flick has two time jumps and two montages showing Chip and Russell's parallel actions and it still feels slow to me.
Another issue is Tyler Cornack's portrayal of Chip. I guess in an effort to project just how bored Chip is, Cornack performs almost every line and action like Steven Wright on Klonopin and aside from his boss (Austin Lewis) almost no one else he interacts with is much livelier. Even his interactions with Russell - which are extremely well-written - come off as stilted because Chip's damp cardboard demeanor doesn't play well against the seething Serpico vibe Tyler Rice is imbuing the detective with. On their own neither one is necessarily a bad choice yet together, and as the anchors to the flick, they drag everything down.
Then there's the decision NOT to show any of the *ahem* dirty deeds. I'm not talking about Cronenberg-level body horror or anything, I just think showing us something, even just one time would have gone a long way. By contrast, 2016's The Greasy Strangler exists in a similar, yet more fully-realized weird world where some kind of serial murderer (the titular Strangler) stalks the night. While that film does show the absurd violence multiple times, the first instance - a face-caving punch - goes a long way toward establishing the tone.
That choice aside, Cornack's direction is quite good. The aforementioned parallel actions montages are smartly conceived and executed with style. Though I can only presume that the choice not to show anything was as much a financial work-around as a tonal one, it gives Butt Boy an edited-for-television feeling that is completely at odds with the third act where we find ourselves in Chip's poop-chute purgatory. Since we'd spent the whole movie ignoring the specifics of how and what happened to everything Chip had been depositing in the rear, the revelation that everyone was somehow living on within this heinie hellscape is pretty confusing. Why leave out so many potential jokes chasing a played-straight detective movie angle that leaves the middle of your movie feeling bland?
It also calls into question the entire "only the premise is a joke" conceit because the finale is a pretty big one as well. Russell finds himself in the same cavernous colonic confinement as the missing kids and since Chip's rectum damn near killed 'em, the only suitable response is revenge. It's the third act of Mandy, if Mandy were made by Tim and Eric.
I can't pretend to know what the filmmakers were shooting for when they decided to expand Butt Boy to feature length. Just the same, the result is a kind of frat house surreality. The juvenile premise and serious tone aren't manipulated finely enough to call each other into contrast, instead each ends up kicking the legs out from under the other. It's clear the filmmakers have talent and interesting conceptual ideas, and while I’m excited for them to tackle further features, Butt Boy just left me with no lasting impression ...in the end.
This piece was written for Moviejawn where you can find tons of other excellent movie-centric writings, a shop where you can subscribe to the quarterly physical zine and also listen to the I Saw It In a Movie, Cinematic Crypt or Hate Watch / Great Watch podcasts!
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