First of all, Id like to point out that there is a downside to the recent boom in movies shot on digital video. It means that there are even more abysmal films than ever before. More bad movies that I have to watch. Now anybody who can scrape together a few grand thinks that they’re another Martin Scorsese, Robert Altman or, in some cases, John Waters. And I’m talking about the early, pukey, troll-filled, gross-out films of Waters. And, let me tell you, he was cranking-out flawless masterpieces next to some of the dog poop out there now.
A prime example is a little film called “Townies” which was written and directed by Wayne Alan Harold. Clocking in at seventy-two minutes, it was about a half-hour too long…and that’s being generous.
The film’s hero Dickie (Toby Radloff) is a dumpster-picking misfit who lives in Schlarb, Ohio–a town over-run by freaks of various origins (also known as “Townies”.) When Dickie tries to seduce his friend “Crazy” Connie (Michelle Sibits), it turns out that she’s not that crazy, because she runs off, screaming.
But soon Dickie’s warped dreams for a girlfriend are answered when he carries home a dead girl from one of his dumpster runs. Dickie, as you might guess, eventually has sex with the corpse.
Meanwhile, Thad (Sean Woolf) is a mean-spirited local who torments the hapless, mindless Townies. However, he eventually gets a brutal a*s-whipping from an odd skinhead (Shane Koltnow).
Needless to say, most of the “film” is just a poor excuse to parade the geeks around. That’s all well and good if you can make it all hang-together and pack some entertainment value. “Townies” is too unfocused to really work.
