“It was the most disturbing thing I’d ever seen. I threw it right in the garbage,” shock jock Howard Stern said of 2000’s Vulgar, the sole feature written and directed by Bryan Johnson, star of AMC’s now defunct “Comic Book Men” and co-host of the popular podcast “Tell ‘Em Steve Dave.”
Stern’s reaction no doubt mirrors many of those who have seen Vulgar, a film executive produced by Kevin Smith and sporting a budget of approximately $100,000.
A mix between the savage kookiness of early grindhouse pictures and David Lynch’s suburban nightmares, Vulgar is a truly one of a kind film, a flick that has earned enough of a cult following that sequel talks have been happening for years now. But the original has still never quite gotten its due.
Vulgar follows Will Carlson (Clerks actor Brian O’Halloran), a struggling clown who is berated by his mother and loathed by his neighbors and even most of his scant customer base.
One day, Carlson has the idea to make some extra scratch. He’ll become a clown for bachelor parties. While the bachelor is expecting a stripper, Carlson will come out dressed in clown makeup and drag as a big goof.
The plan goes awry when Carlson, going under the name Vulgar, is hired by three hillbillies, a father and sons trio that might make even Lynch cringe. The men beat and rape Carlson and catch it all on film. It’s during this highly disturbing sequence that Stern turned the picture off. It’s also when the film’s creepiest line oozes its way off the screen: “I’m going to make hate to you.”
Smith has said the line haunted him for years and the deranged embrace of wacky darkness that is Vulgar is partly what motivated him to take his own trip into horror for the first time with 2011’s Red State.
“[Vulgar] is an awesome exploitation movie, one that inspired me eventually to make Red State,” Smith said on an episode of “Comic Book Men.”
Smith’s love of Vulgar is part of a wonderfully twisted creative circle as Vulgar itself was inspired from Johnson wondering what the story was behind the cross-dressing clown that originally represented the View Askew brand, an image that was drawn by Walt Flanagan, who co-hosts “Tell ‘Em Steve Dave” with Johnson and also starred in “Comic Book Men.”
Anyway, back to the plot.
Carlson ends up saving a kid being held hostage and suddenly his dreams are coming true. He becomes a local hero and gets his own television show. After all the scraping to get by, and the insults suffered, it all starts to pay off for Carlson. Only one problem. A certain videotape comes back to the surface and Carlson is suddenly being blackmailed. And there’s far more than money on the line.
What makes Vulgar uncomfortable for some — beyond the basic dark plot — is its commitment to its ideas. It is never too graphic or gruesome to be considered a piece of shlock, but its lo-fi quality and refusal to look away from the more realistic consequences to the bizarre things we are witnessing make it truly disturbing. While this could have been a surface-level revenge story, the film is surprising in that it gets into deeper themes of post traumatic stress disorder and karmic retribution.
If you’ve never seen Vulgar, you’ll truly have no real sense of where things are going as Johnson is not sticking to a typical three-act structure. His writing feels as honest and unforgiving as that cheap lens through which we see it all happen.
Vulgar also contains some of the most underrated performances in the horror genre, with the grand prize going to Jerry Lewkowitz, the head of the clan that rapes Vulgar. He spits his lines like venom and there is not a moment from the man that feels like acting. His performance alone lays a sense of terror over every single other scene.
Matthew Maher and Ethan Suplee are sufficiently crazy as well, but the other true standout from the picture is O’Halloran. He’s proven he can play a likable schlub in the Clerks pictures, but this movie gives the actor a chance to really dig deeper than his other roles and show us how much potential he really has. He’s equal parts sad, pathetic and admirable throughout the picture. O’Halloran pulls off scenes – the rape bit being only the tip of the iceberg – most actors would never agree to. He crumbles before us and he does it so convincingly that it’s hard to really ever shake Vulgar out of your head.
Also watch out for cameos from plenty of people in the Askew family. Kevin Smith has a role in the film, plus there’s Clerks producer Scott Mosier, Jason Mewes, and “Impractical Jokers” star Brian Quinn, as well as Walt Flanagan.
Vulgar celebrates its twentieth anniversary this year, but its themes are just as resonant and powerful as when it was first unleashed. While the film certainly doesn’t look like the high definition horror released today, it’s one so brutal, so honest and so unique that it etches its way into your skull and never leaves.
Even 20 years later, it’s an unforgettable experience.