For you fans out there of Richard Stanley’s 1990 cyberpunk sleazer, “Hardware”, here’s sumthin’ a whole lot sleazier to stroke your little sci-fi perversions. It’s Scooter McCrae’s “Sixteen Tongues” and whether it has you scratching your head or rubbing your bathing suit area, it’s guaranteed to be an alternative to your normal viewing diet, no matter how twisted it is.
Porn. Porn. Porn. Porn is everywhere. Normally this wouldn’t be a bad thing, but here it’s shown to be rather disgusting – a bunch of greasy meat spreading and slapping together. Pornography is plastered all over the walls and it plays non-stop on the television screens of the seedy hotel our story takes place in.
One of the hotel’s occupants is a sleazy cop, Adrian, who has a bit of a beauty handicap. Due to an explosion, Adrian lost more than half of the skin from his body, so to replace it, the tongue meat from the victims of the explosion has been surgically grafted to him…and not very well at that. Besides the obvious problem of his new monstrous appearance, Adrian can now taste with most of his body and if two of the tongue patches touch, he receives some sort of painful feedback loop. So yeah, Adrian is sleazy and awfully moody.
Two other inhabitants of the hotel are lesbian lovers Alik and Ginny. Alik is a “datastream” hacker who is obsessed with finding information leading to her brother’s killer. Ginny is an assassin who is out for revenge against the mad doctor who surgically placed a clitoris underneath each of her eyelids. Yes, they do some weird fuckin’ medical procedures in this world.
During the course of their stay, these three characters meet and things get bloody…in more ways than one.
Explicitly sexual and violent, “Sixteen Tongues” is for an audience that can take a good visual beating. Three words for you – blood ejaculating penis. If those words put together turn your stomach, then you’re probably not the person this movie was made for. If they pique your curiosity, then “Sixteen Tongues” just may be your twisted dream come true as a blood ejaculating penis is one of many brutal exhibits on display here. But beyond the harsh imagery, the whole cyberpunk flavor of this story provides a lot to chew on. Cyberpunk has never been very forgiving for those who can’t quickly follow along in this crazy new world that assumes you’re just as familiar with it as the characters are. Some can hang, some can’t. “Sixteen Tongues” is no different (and it doesn’t help the some of the dialogue borders on inaudible), but once you do catch up with what’s happening, then you can just sit back, relax and let Scooter twist your brain for a while. It’s a helluva workout.
