All but lost, the unreleased Banned represents the final film of cult New York director Roberta Findlay (Tenement). Beholden to no genre and without an internal logic to call its own, the movie is utterly strange even for her.

Ostensibly, it’s about the ghost of Sid Vicious-esque punk rocker Teddy Homicide (Neville Wells), he of Rotten Filth. While laying tracks at Impulse Studios, he suddenly snaps, mows everyone down with a machine gun, and then drowns himself in the toilet. His soul remains in the commode for 10 years, until the band Banned (get it?) scrounges together enough cash to cut an album there, and jazz guitarist Kent (Dan Erickson from Mrs. Findlay’s Blood Sisters) becomes possessed when sprayed with toilet water. It happens.

Findlay only marginally pursues that angle; it’s secondary to everything else, which can be broken into three major categories:
1. automatic weapons — Guns are handled by many characters throughout. Whether incidentally or in the hands of a Middle Eastern terrorist trio, they’re played for laughs, no matter how many lives are snuffed out. Ditto Banned‘s climax of Kent/Teddy being chased through Central Park with a rocket launcher.
2. groupie sex — Banned’s drummer, Serge (Fred Cabral), balls anything with a cervix. He never finishes, because copulation is interrupted by the ringing of an alarm clock, which he then hurls against the wall. Its broken parts fall into a pile of so many, it’s a wonder Serge doesn’t have the HIV. Among the women who strip nude is D-list scream queen Debbie Rochon (Santa Claws), in only her sixth credit of (at press time) 225.
3. slapstick comedy — Or “attempts at,” to get technical. Characters plunge into open manholes, and if it’s not funny the first time (and it’s not), Findlay hopes it will be the third (nope). Similarly, when Serge lapses into a religious rant, his pals press a surge protector labeled “Serge Suppressor” to his chest; Findlay draws attention to the pun thrice just to make sure you won’t miss it. You won’t, but you’ll groan instead of guffaw.

Depicted twice, the weirdest gag has Broken Records’ owner — an old, short, round Jewish man — snort lines of “beef adrenal tissue,” thereby turning him into a young, tall, muscular African-American hulk à la Kentucky Fried Movie‘s Big Jim Slade.

Almost as an afterthought, Kent is exorcised by a preacher who moonlights as a plumber. Banned is worth about an equal amount of contemplation; while certainly not boring, its intent and execution are perplexing. Erickson bothers to give an actual performance, but everyone else — to borrow a line from the movie — can “go fuck a coconut.” —Rod Lott