A shapeless mishmash of surrealism, absurdity and all bodily fluids, the way-way-out anthology Fat Fleshy Fingers comes loosely linked by the appearance of the film’s mascot: a toothy pink parasite that looks like a dildo Clive Barker might design. If you’re a fan of the bizarro fiction movement, this experience — and it is that — was made expressly for you. Segments range from inspired to inane; its closest analog may be Japan’s Funky Forest. Regardless, drugs were drugged.
With The Greasy Strangler himself, Michael St. Michaels, as a grandfather to a dying girl, the first bit is the funniest and most successful. He shares a story about an ancient mummy’s curse, which involves “touchable, delicious, fuckable worm juice.”
From there, the law of diminishing returns kicks in as the parasite passes person to person — you know, like It Follows, but with far more consumption of fecal matter and insertion of inhuman things into human holes. From a pirate orgy to a severed finger, shock value is the point for all 10 directors. If the application of “sex perfume” portion isn’t the nastiest thing you can recall seeing of late, I don’t even want to know.
The very definition of “your mileage may vary,” Fat Fleshy Fingers could be called an un-thology for breaking all rules of convention. Its weirdo cartoon interstitials don’t quite qualify as transitions, plus stories aren’t present to be told as much as exploited to an extreme. “Whether you’re a scalawag or a swashbuckler,” to borrow one character’s phrasing, a viewing isn’t likely to endear you to check out the music of the Elephant 6 collective’s Neutral Milk Hotel, whose lo-fi psychedelic tunes inspired each piece. —Rod Lott