ONE-EYED MONSTER (2008)
**1/2
I really, really expected to write a bad review for this movie…
Witness the premise - a group of porn stars, led by superstar Ron Jeremy (as Ron Jeremy!), head out to a cabin in the woods to shoot an adult film. Soon after arriving, Ron gets zapped by some sort of evil alien meteor, which takes over his penis, detaches itself from his body, and starts to kill off his co-stars one by one. One Eyed Monster - there you have it.
Oh yeah, it sounds fun; a few laughs here and there, some cheesy acting to scoff at, but certainly a movie to be seen - endured - only once, if only to post a review about a movie where Ron Jeremy’s dick kills people. But, no! - I have been humbled by director Adam Fields’ 84-minute fable, a shockingly clever take on both the porn industry, and what we assume we know about it, and monster-in-the-woods horror films themselves, and what we’ve come to love about them.
Every once in a while you find yourself raising a glass at a filmmaker for getting that One Thing right, making that One Call that took their film to its ultimate level of distinction. For One Eyed Monster, that brilliant element was to have the proceedings played out straight. Yes you have a porn shoot as a backdrop, and yes your villain is a murderous detached penis, but you won’t find a cheesy bouncy “bo-i-oi-i-oing” score here, nor will every development serve as merely an opportunity to watch another couple have sex. There is a monster! loose, and the terrified victims act accordingly - or more specifically, they act in accordance with the conventions of the genre, delivering each “We’re gonna’ die up here…” type line as if the villain in question was any of a dozen familiar cabin-stalkers, and not a morbidly disturbed phallus. Camp - at least at the more obvious, intentional levels seen in modern B-movies - is left at the door; the fact that the killer is a penis is secondary to the fact that it’s a killer. Even the film’s poster (see below) suggests your standard scifi/horror flick, and leaves out any implications beyond.
In what is perhaps the greatest example of this, veteran actor Charles Napier delivers what is easily the most hilarious moment in the film, as well as - for a film geek anyway - the most satisfying and impressive. Napier, as the ubiquitous grizzled older hermit who’s “seen this beast before…”, comes across the group of friends and, after being pretty much silent for most of the film, finally breaks down and delivers a booze-induced monologue that recalls - and then, in its own way, transcends - the shark attack memoir so famously delivered by Robert Shaw in Jaws. There are no sharks or Japanese submarines in this tale, however - Napier’s trauma involves the titular one eyed monster, and again, as ridiculous as this is, he delivers the hell out of his monologue, eyes red with rage and face caved in with regret, repeatedly spitting out the word “dick” as if it were as legitimate an old foe as a shark or sniper. I was seriously laughing my ass off, impressed as hell not only by Napier’s performance and dedication, but by what felt almost literally like a gift I was being given by the filmmakers - here was a moment for those who appreciate and absorb the films they’ve seen, plain and simple. Here, like so many others in this film, was a scene for horror film lovers.
Does every joke work? Or course not, but even those that don’t are delivered with such earnestness and gravity as to take the whole thing to another level. Jason Graham delivers his tell-it-like-it-is lines with the gruff intensity of a Tony Todd or a Ken Foree; Jeremy himself is actually not too shabby a feature actor; but it’s porn veteran Veronica Hart that ultimately walks away with the film. As an aging porn actress who is determined not to concede her industry to its wave of rising stars, Hart showcases her distinctive talents twice in this film, both of which - I have to imagine - had to be re-shot repeatedly due to hysterical laughter on the set. You’ve seen and heard final moments like hers a million times, but never quite like this.
For a film about porn stars, there’s very little sex; for a film about a killer penis, you hardly ever see the penis. They could have gone a totally different way with this film, and I am so very glad they didn’t. Like Killer Condom before it, this is a film that is funnier and better than its premise - it doesn’t rely on its gimmick to deliver, choosing instead to stand on its own merits as clever satire of two genres of film that, let’s face it, most of us know and love.
- Logan Crow, 08-10-09
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