| The Underground Comedy Movie | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Vince Offer |
| Produced by | Maria Levin Jeff Jaeger Mark Shlomi |
| Written by | Vince Offer Dante |
| Starring | Vince Offer Slash |
| Music by | NOFX Guttermouth |
| Cinematography | Michael Hofstein |
| Editing by | Vince Offer Luis Ruiz |
| Release date(s) | 14 May 1999 |
| Running time | 88 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $170,000 |
The Underground Comedy Movie is a 1999 film directed by and starring Vince Offer. It features music by NOFX and Guttermouth, among others.
Contents |
The film mainly consists of skits featuring celebrities in various roles, such as Gena Lee Nolin loudly using the restroom and a superhero named "Dickman", dressed in a penis costume who defeats his enemies by squirting them with semen, based on sketches Offer originally performed on a Public-access television show he had hosted. The 2010 remake was to add an additional scene where Lindsay Lohan went on a shooting spree against paparazzi. The film went direct to video and consistently rates in IMDB's bottom 100 movies. Lawrence Van Gelder in The New York Times wrote a scathing review of the film, saying the movie "stands as a monument to ineptitude and self-delusion."[1]
Although the film was released and screened in 1999, Offer was bankrupt by 2002 and home video distribution plans were shelved. Offer, who had previously been a successful vegetable chopper salesman and businessman, resumed selling vegetable choppers at swap meets to support himself and raise money to complete his film project. Within a few months, he had earned enough to resume production, and the movie was finally completed, released, and marketed entirely on late-night infomercials that Offer paid for with his earnings from the swap meet vegetable chopper sales. The film has sold in excess of 10,000 copies and Offer has used the proceeds from sales to file a lawsuit against the Church of Scientology, himself an ex-Scientologist.[2][3]
In June 2010, it was revealed that Offer had completed filming of scenes starring Lindsay Lohan and model Joanna Krupa for a brand-new "Underground Comedy" movie;[4] in 2011, it was later revealed that other celebrities, including Rob Schneider, Adrien Brody and Michelle Rodriguez had all signed on to appear in the new sketch comedy project as well.[5] The production company, Square One Entertainment, said the film was slated for a 2012 theatrical release despite having previews show in 2010 and being advertised as "Underground Comedy Movie 2010."
The film was met with less-than-favorable reviews, receiving a 33% from Rotten Tomatoes based on 6 reviews.[6] The New York Post said it "may be the least amusing comedy ever made," and Lawrence Van Gelder of The New York Times described the movie as "a series of sketches built around subjects like masturbation, defecation, alienation, urination, necrophilia, voyeurism, casual brutality, and mockery of the unfortunate." He added that Offer "makes the common mistake of equating the recognition of comic potential for comedy itself. For the successful, talent bridges the gap, but, here, it is absent."[7]
The film also face many lawsuits. On September 23, 1998, Vince Offer filed a suit against 20th Century Fox and the co-directors of There's Something About Mary, Bobby and Peter Farrelly. Offer claimed that 14 scenes in Mary were lifted from his film. The Farrellys released this statement: "We've never heard of him, we've never heard of his movie, and it's all a bunch of baloney."[8] The case was dismissed with prejudice on a motion for summary judgment by order of the court in 2000, and Twentieth Century Fox was awarded $66,336.92 in attorneys' fees.[9]
In 2000, Offer successfully sued Anna Nicole Smith for $4 million, claiming that Smith had agreed to be in his movie, but backed out in 1996 over fears that appearing in the movie would be detrimental to her career.[10] Offer won the lawsuit, but the case was settled anyway.
In 2004, Offer sent out a press release through prnews.com announcing his intention to sue the Church of Scientology. In 1997, while production was ongoing, the Church of Scientology had allegedly begun a large-scale smear campaign against Offer and his film (Offer was a Scientologist at the time).[3] The director claimed the Scientologists' "Celebrity Center" in Hollywood labeled him a "criminal" (based on the rules of Scientology) and threatened his Scientology friends in the movie business with "condemnation" punishment that could be lethal to their careers if they did not write malicious reports against Offer.[3]