Adapted from the same-titled novel by Flemish cult writer Herman Brusselmans, this is an occasionally striking, self-indulgent feature length kick in the nuts for the PC brigade. Shot in grimy locations in trendily washed-out colors, it is deliberately cavalier and eager to shock in its use of contentious subject matter such as race, homosexuality, child abuse and the handicapped. Its uber-grim plot incorporates infant death and a grueling male rape but its chief problem is that it’s just not very interesting on any level and plays out like a fairly desperate and deliberate attempt to create a cult film with the energy and subversive power of something like TRAINSPOTTING.
Three drug-addled, disabled members of a bad punk rock band are searching for a drummer. They locate a fairly famous writer who was once a (bad) drummer and now refers to himself as being “more cynical than the King of Siam”. The band call themselves “the four feminists” on the basis that four variously handicapped musicians are about as useful as a quartet of feminists. One of the guys has a stiff arm and a major complex about his bald mother and insane, incontinent father. Another is a rampant misogynist with a lisp who beats up women because their parking enrages him. And the guitarist is almost deaf. Together, the guys are useless but they nonetheless prepare to participate in a prominent rock contest, running into problems when their song “Deep Fish” clashes with another band’s signature tune of the same name.
Director Koen Mortier experiments to varying degrees of effectiveness with handheld cameras and offbeat stylistic touches including whole scenes played backward and upside down. At times the movie’s cheerfully offensive “anything goes” approach verges on the compelling but the attempt to captures the nihilistic punk aesthetic on film has resulted in an obnoxious picture that leaves a sour taste and little else.
For the faithful, there is plenty of full frontal nudity, vomit, unattractive fat women and an exuberant threesome. There’s also a diverting vignette about a woman whose vagina smelled of rotten fish and who got together with a guy whose cock smelled of pigeon shit. If that kind of thing amuses you, you may feel inclined to stay with EX DRUMMER up to its bloodbath-finale, intercut with a sex scene.
-Steven West
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
