Friday, March 23, 2018
Lucifer Lurks in the VHS Haze: “Everything Is Terrible!” comes to The Loft
How to give your cat a massage, a man in a rooster costume doing yoga on a farm, explaining why Jesus died for your doughnuts. These are just some of the thousands of bizarre and wondrous clips the members of “Everything Is Terrible!” have scrounged from the depths of VHS dollar-bins. Since the turn of the millenium, EIT’s video blog has uploaded the most surreal video clips from the peripheries of cinema and television.
The project, like all creative endeavors, has changed over the years. Now, in addition to uploading clips, EIT is creating full-length compilation movies and touring them around the nation. Their newest agglomeration, “The Great Satan” combines unholy clips from over 2,000 of the silliest, worst-of-the-worst horror and religious movies. And it’s marching on toward Tucson.
The film is a collage that tells the classic tales of the Expulsion from Eden, the battle of good versus evil, the temptation of darkness and more. It just happens to tell these iconic stories through forgotten public-access tv clips, animated children’s shows and home movies never meant to be seen.
It begins by telling you to “fasten your spiritual seat belts” and to “turn on your VCR, turn on your mind”. What follows is a kaleidoscopic series of hilarious clips that just somehow manage to maintain a thin thread of continuity. If you’re familiar with the experimental band Negativland, it’s like they made a movie.
The Great Satan is hilarious, unnerving, confusing, obscene and above all: entertaining. With its irreverent, anti-establishment, self-awareness, It’s truly punk rock cinema.
One sequence shows a series of low-budget pastors marred by VHS grain describing how “God created sex,” and then quick-cuts to a school assembly where a chorus of young men chant “Virginity is cool.”
Is there actually a message here? Perhaps about the absurdity of religion or the human need to laugh at the hallowed things? Could be. But the biggest lesson comes in revelation of just how many bizarre movies, shows and documentaries are hidden in the world. Every clip in The Great Satan, whether it’s a minute or half a second, opens up a whole world of curiosity about what the hell the rest of the show is like. But there’s no way to keep track, the ludicrous clips just keep coming and all you can do is release any grounding or footholds you have and fall into the ride.
Recommended for anyone who’s curious what it would look like if you put the Teletubbies, Lethal Weapon 3, and Paradise Lost in blender, and then squeezed in just a couple drops of LSD.
The members of EIT are also working on an additional project. In their years of searching through thrift stores, garage sales, and bargain bins, they noticed an abundance of Jerry Maguire VHS tapes. So what’s the logical next step? Amass about 15,000 copies of Jerry Maguire and construct them into a massive pyramid somewhere in the desert. If you have a spare copy laying around, please bring your offerings of Jerry Maguire VHS tapes to the altar when The Great Satan shows at The Loft.
The Great Satan show at The Loft Cinema starts at 7:30 p.m., on Sunday, March 25. General admission: $10. Loft members $8. Approximately 90 mins., Not Rated / May Contain Adult Content.
