Release Date: 26^th August

Length: 82 Minutes

Classification: M (Sexual References, Comedic Violence and Infrequent Coarse Language)

Several days ago I experienced a dizzying vision of the future that overwhelmed me, and enveloped my consciousness, rendering the true world asunder and bringing me totally into an environment of both clarity and despair. In this vision of the future I was an old man, stricken with The Cancer, surrounded by people hoping to inherit my paltry fortune. Among those gathered were my bastard grandchildren, clearly disturbed and repulsed by the sight of me.

I managed to catch the attention of one of these children. “Come here, small child,” I cried. “You’re not my real grandpapa,” said he, “and you smell bad.” Amused by the playful banter of the precocious child, I said “Shut the hell up and listen to me.” Frightened into submission, the child approached. “I’m going to tell you what it is like to die,” I declared, and the child began playing with his space-age GameBoy or whatever you call those things. Undeterred, I began my tale.

“Firstly, imagine that you are going to see a motion picture. You enter the theatre with the thought in your mind that what you are about to experience is a piece of filmed entertainment – a narrative, if you will. You take your seat, the curtains go up – but what is shown is not a film. It is not a work of narrative entertainment at all. It is something else entirely – utterly abominable and offensive to your complete array of faculties. The images you see on the screen replicate those of a contemporary film franchise that has delighted young girls all over the world. Back then it was vampires, teenage vampires who enjoy celibacy and bestiality or something. I don’t remember, it was pre-war, you see.

“So anyway, these replicated images are supposedly lending themselves towards what we used to call a parody. A parody was a type of film that would lampoon, or make fun of, another film or genre. But you see, conventionally, a parody will take a serious film, and make it funny, through the use of things called gags and jokes. And what happens then is that you laugh during the film – in essence you have a good time at the movies. But this thing that you see in this instance, this supposed parody, this works in another way entirely. You do not laugh, you do not enjoy yourself. There are no gags, there are no jokes. There are just things that happen, references to contemporary pop culture with no through-line or semblance of a connecting tissue. Just random things put up on the screen that the audience does not, and cannot register, because they do not mean anything.

“Also, quite oddly, this film, this narrative work of fiction, it is not played out by actors, or even comedians. Or comedic actors. It is played out by nobodies. Random people off the street, it seems. This may sound avant-garde and interesting, perhaps even art-house in its pretensions, and yet it is not. An art-house work will usually have a point, or something interesting to say. This… thing that I speak of in this instance, does not. It leaves the viewer wanting to scream uncontrollably long after the credits have rolled. It kills off the brain cells of those experiencing it rapidly and without reserve. It is relentless, and it overwhelms the viewer, killing them incrementally.”

“Do you speak of The Cancer?” asked the child.

“No,” I said, “but it is very similar. More upsetting is the fact that people apparently pay money to go through this, the greatest suffering that any man or woman could possibly endure. They say that people willingly go through such ordeals. To what end, I do not know. It is a mystery that shall plague me for what little I have left of my life.”

“So that’s what it’s like to die?” asked the child. 

“Huh? Oh, no…” I chuckled. “No, my child, that’s what it’s like to sit through Vampires Suck. Although the effect is much the same.”

Fail