The Underground Comedy Movie

Submitted by corwin on Sun, 12 Apr 2009 5:56pm

A little while back, I heard that Vince Offer, the infomercial guy who sells the Sham-Wow and the Slap-Chop, had a more interesting background than I would otherwise have thought. He had apparently made a movie once upon a time, but had been ruined financially when the Church of Scientology kicked him out and, according to him, launched a smear campaign against him. He managed to use his skills marketing a vegetable shopper to pull together enough money to finish producing the movie, then marketed it in infomercials to sell over 100,000 copies. He then used the profits to turn around and sue the Church of Scientology.

This story sounded interesting enough that I figured I ought to take a look at The Underground Comedy Movie.

I figured wrong. No one should take a look at that steaming pile. It turned out to be one of the absolute worst things I have ever had the misfortune to behold.

The Underground Comedy Movie is a collection of "comedy" sketches based on a cable access show Offer used to have. The sketches are uniformly terrible, poorly written and acted. Almost invariably, the punchlines were dragged out longer and longer, well past any potential for humor. It was as if he was committed to using every second of footage he shot, though we realized he actually did do some editing, as there were outtakes in the DVD special features. Worse, many of the "jokes" were repeated again and again over the course of the interminable eight-eight minutes, getting less funny each time.

The entire movie was designed to be as crude and offensive as possible. This wouldn't necessarily put me off, but none of was actually funny, making the entire thing painful to watch. I was embarassed for the actual stars like Slash and Michael Clarke Duncan who participated in this fiasco, and I can't imagine they're particularly proud of it.

In the end, I'm forced to conclude that Vince Offer hates me (and the rest of the movie-going public) and this is while he would release such a steaming pile upon us. Alone in the Dark is still the worst thing I've yet seen, but this runs a very close second. Do not give in to any temptation you may have to see for yourself, not even in the worst fit of masochism. Once seen, The Underground Comedy Movie cannot be unseen. It would be reasonable grounds for any group to excommunicate its maker.

Oh, how I wish Unicorn Chasers were real.