Andrew reviews the gross-out redneck horror comedy Hans Crippleton: Talk to the Hans
Somewhere in Jimmy Lee Combs' offensive and moronic gross-out horror comedy Hans Crippleton: Talk to the Hans is a send up of trailer trash exploitainment spoken of the same breath as Pink Flamingos, Trash Humpers, Here Comes Honey Boo Boo and most notably The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia. The brainchild of screenwriter, producer and lead actor Kevon Ward, Hans Crippleton: Talk to the Hans seeks to parody the stereotypes of Mondo reality television preying on an inbred redneck family in the deep south, replete with Confederate flags, moonshine, birth defects and rotting teeth. The trailer initially promises a freakish sideshow of disgusting filth which gets increasingly bizarre as it progresses. There's also a meta sense of self-awareness running through the premise, as though we're seeing an ordinarily reality TV show family in the most revolting way possible. All seems well until in the trailer (and 5 minutes into the actual film), zombies show up. Really? You had something resembling an original gross-out comic premise with more tests of the gag reflexes than Gyorgi Palfi's Taxidermia. Did this film really need to toss that done-to-death cliche into the mix and in so doing completely ruin everything Hans Crippleton: Talk to the Hans aspired to offer?
Aside from two gags such as a zombie dog made from random human body parts or a group of teenagers venturing into zombieland to laugh it up only to flee in terror at the sight of Mr. Crippleton, the answer is no. Its an unnecessary distraction which broke the rules of reality this film's premise could have had and honestly feels like a thread belonging to a completely unrelated movie. When we've got the obese mother with gangrenous sores adorning her body and oversized buck teeth in view, we don't need another dull and insipid zombie bursting through the door. All the while a faux documentary premise concerning a television show host ala Natural Born Killers' Wayne Gale sets his sights on exploiting the inbred family for ratings. Hans Crippleton himself is unleashed upon ordinary society at one point, recalling the stunts of Jeff Tremaine's Jackass in parts. Clearly the filmmakers have studied Jesco White and the White family's antics and West Virginian dialect exaggerated to ridiculous degrees. There's ample room for satire all over Hans Crippleton: Talk to the Hans and throughout the picture are moments that are genuinely inspired in their ability to disgust. It's worth noting the prosthetic makeup effects are truly repulsive and come very close to purging one's gag reflexes, some physical deformities more creative than others, when they aren't resorting to tacking on some of the worst CG rendered digital blood I have ever seen in a film, period.
It's those damn zombies I cannot think my way around. They have no bearing on the plot, premise or idea that is Hans Crippleton: Talk to the Hans. There's absolutely no reason whatsoever for them to be in this. For beginners looking to break into film and in particular screenwriting, watch Hans Crippleton: Talk to the Hans as a case study in how one single solitary element in your script can destroy your movie. It's so at odds with the wallow in inbred grotesquerie that otherwise makes up the remainder of the film that it threatens to pull the film apart. You could make the argument even without it this is just a dullard's Trash Humpers which by contrast lured you into its sick vomitorium before gifting viewers with a grand and startlingly humane revelation. The same can be said for Pink Flamingos which was teeming with wit, brilliant uses of music and was as much about guerilla warfare among neighbors as it was about eating dog feces. In the case of Hans Crippleton, my only guess is that they feared viewers wouldn't take to hanging out with Tod Browning's Freaks for two hours. The producers must've felt they had to give people something to latch onto, so they gave us zombies whether it worked in context or not. Whatever the reasoning behind the choice, it was a toxic addition to an already vulgar and mind-numbing piece of bio-hazardous toxic waste. My friendly recommendation: avoid.Score
-Andrew Kotwicki