All my enemies are dead.
Main Cast: Zack Fox, George Clinton
Director: Steve
I watch a lot of Rifftrax, and one of their taglines is, “Some movies have it coming.”
God if ever a movie had it coming it would be 2017’s KUSO. However, the “it” in question in regards to Rifftrax is “ridicule”. In the case of KUSO, the “it” is a kick in the teeth, a punch in the junk, and an atomic wedgie to boot.
However, in the case of KUSO, it might just love it.
KUSO is the brainchild of rapper, producer, DJ, and filmmaker Flying Lotus—going by his given first name here: Steve. He directed the “film” and, with David Firth and Zack Fox, wrote its vignettes. The wraparound is there’s been a devastating earthquake in LA and these stories are told in the aftermath. I won’t go into the individual stories here because 1) they don’t matter, 2) I did NOT get that they were set in the aftermath of the earthquake (nor any sense of a cohesive story whatsoever!), and 3) I already watched the movie once, I don’t want to relive a single second of it any longer than necessary to get this review written.
The preoccupation here is with bodily fluids—all of them!—and gross facial pustules which every single character here has, some way bigger than others. Well, the human ones, anyway. There’s Kazo and Mazu, two interdimensional creatures that have been described elsewhere as looking like sentient shag carpets and that’s about as good a description as any. Christ, this movie!
I’m all for flexing your creative muscles. I’m all for pushing boundaries. Hell, 20-year-old me would have been all over this movie, hailing it for its daring and attitude. To say I loved Firth’s SALAD FINGERS shorts is an understatement! That was over 30 years ago and when this movie came out—2017—we had moved so far beyond being gross for the sake of being gross. In 1992? Sure. In 2017, or now 2025 when I’m finally seeing it? Well, I guess that’s a thing, then. Oh, look, a giant anus-shaped creature that has a giant tongue protruding from it. Oh, look, a giant bug-shaped parasite that comes out of George Clinton’s ass when serenaded and it can cure a man of his “fear of tits” when he drinks whatever it is that comes out of its antennae. Oh, look, a man’s popped up out of the toilet after the woman he’s in love with was just sitting there wrecking the bowl. And the people who made this movie are HOW OLD???
I watched this movie because I’m trying to go through Shudder in the order the movies were added, and this was next. But I procrastinated for MONTHS, or longer, because one viewing of the trailer told me I was in for a rough go if I ever sat down and tried to watch this. But I finally bit the bullet today and got it out of the way and I never have to do it again. Some movies you watch over and over. Some movies, once is enough. Some movies, you get to the end and want to claw out your eyes, but then KUSO would be the last thing you see! I never thought I’d see the movie that made me think, “Man, I should have watched TRUMP VS. THE ILLUMINATI again.”
According to both Wikipedia and the IMDB trivia page, this “film’s” Sundance premiere caused a lot of people to walk out. That doesn’t surprise me at all. God, I wish I could have walked out, but I was in my own living room, and my TV’s too big to just toss out a window.
The acting was sufficient for what this was, I guess, but I’m not calling out any of the actors just in case they saw the finished product and said “WHAT???? No! God, no, don’t ever associate me with this!” Their secret is safe with me. Also, if I ever met them, I wouldn’t be able to look them in the eye out of sheer embarrassment FOR them, some of them I really like as performers! In other things.
I give this movie 1 star for sheer ambition. They didn’t just swing for the fences, they left it all on the field, to continue the metaphor. So I guess credit there, that’s more movie than I ever made. But in reality, this movie was so bad, I’m gonna have to dock the next few movies I watch stars just to pay back some of the star-deficit this movie built up.
KUSO was an acid trip during a fever dream and I did not enjoy the experience.
C. Dennis Moore is the author of over 60 published short stories and novellas in the speculative fiction genre. Most recent appearances are in the Dark Highlands 2, What Fears Become, Dead Bait 3 and Dark Highways anthologies. His novels are Revelations, and the Angel Hill stories, The Man in the Window, The Third Floor, and The Flip.
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