Tonight I saw PERVERT!.

 Now, many people out there may not be familiar with
 Meyer’s work and many of those who are reside either
 in the love him or hate him camps of thinking. Myself,
 I’m in the love him camp. Ever since I laid my eyes on
 FASTER PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL! I’ve thought Russ Meyer
 was his own special brand of genius. Meyer’s films
 were in a world all their own and they possessed a
 kinetic campy energy that had to be seen to be
 believed. While many of them weren’t perfect by any
 stretch of the imagination they had heart as well as
 stories that ranged from actually interesting to
 outright bizarre. Yes, many people dismiss him as a
 B-movie director or possibly even a low grade porn
 maker but to me his movies were unique and extremely
 enjoyable in their own way…and not the way that a lot
 of you sickos are thinking either. OK…yeah, maybe THAT
 way, sure, but his movies had chutspah dammit and
 because of that I was always more interested in
 checking out a Meyer film than I would be of going to
 see latest factory line produced soulless piece of
 drivel that Michael Bay may have come up with in his
 sleep. Meyer CARED about what he was making and it
 showed on the screen.

 Which brings me to PERVERT!.

 While Russ Meyer may have passed on to the great
 beyond a little over a year ago his spirit certainly
 lives on in filmmaker Jonathan Yudis and his movie
 PERVERT!. With PERVERT! Yudis has made a film that
 Meyer would be proud of. Yudis has done what so many
 other filmmakers have failed to do in the past: he’s
 captured the crazy spirit that filled many of Meyer’s
 movies without losing any of their bite. Yudis has
 made what is as close as you can get to a Russ Meyer
 movie made for the 21st century and in today’s
 politically correct climate I’m sure it wasn’t easy
 for him to do.

 What’s so impressive about PERVERT! is the fact that
 it captures the campy feel that all of Meyer’s films
 had. So often movies set out to be campy and fail
 miserably and end up being just flat. They just lose
 steam because they’re not willing to go as far with
 their story or dialogue as they should. They focus on
 trying to be bad movies and hope that they can catch
 that campy spirit of say, the original Batman TV show.
 What filmmakers who’ve made those projects don’t
 realize is that often with camp the projects are made
 with complete seriousness. The lines are delivered
 with conviction and the directing approached with
 care. Movies that have become zany camp are made with
 love and not disdain for their subject matter. If they
 missed the mark and fell into camp it wasn’t because
 they weren’t trying to make something “good”. Quite
 the opposite and it’s because of that that films like
 The Rocky Horror Picture Show are loved the world
 over. The people who made camp cared and it shows on
 the screen. It seemed to me, watching PERVERT! that
 Jonathan Yudis actually understands this.

 In PERVERT! Yudis has created a style of film that, in
 most cases, has been dead for a long time. It’s film
 that decides to go all the way and not hold anything
 back. It’s a movie that’s equal parts comedy, part
 horror/gore movie, and part sex film. It’s a crazy and
 unbridled romp through Meyers land and it’s made even
 better by the fact that Yudis has obviously studied
 the geography as his movie comes across almost as if
 it were made by the man himself. The music, the
 editing, the dialogue…all of it is there. I’ve often
 wondered what Russ Meyer might be able to do with the
 advent of the digital filmmaking revolution and Yudis
 has provided the answer. Meyer’d make something almost
 exactly like PERVERT!.

 And in some ways Yudis has made something better than
 a Meyer film. The director of this movie avoids a lot
 of the clunkiness of Meyer’s films and the movie
 breezes along at a quick and humorous pace. The
 movie’s actually funny and the lines and moments that
 are supposed to make you laugh are actually able to do
 so. While the dialogue is just as guffaw-inducing as
 old-school Meyer there are actually jokes in this film
 that work. Not to mention that the delivery by many of
 the actors goes a long way. Specifically by the lead
 actor Sean Andrews and the actor who plays his father,
 Darrell Sandeen. Sandeen has some great lines in the
 flick which he delivers in a way that’d make Adam West
 envious. All in all Yudis has made an extremely
 enjoyable film. Special kudos for to animator Corky
 Quakenbush (Of Mad TV’s Raging Rudolf and Davey and
 Goliath as Son of Sam fame,) for putting together some
 really great claymation sequences that occur towards
 the “ahem” climax of the movie. Yep, you read that
 last part right…PERVERT! even has claymation! It’s
 claymation that definitely isn’t for the kiddies but
 neither is the rest of the movie.

 After all, it is a Russ Meyer style movie and yes,
 gentlemen, it’s not for the sexually conservative
 among you. The film co-stars Skinemax adult star Marey
 Carey who’s more than willing to display her, um,
 talents for the screen as are several of the other
 actresses in the film. There’s plenty of skin to go
 around in this movie but then the movie is called
 PERVERT! after all. In true Russ Meyer fashion the
 buxom ladies are plenty in this movie and they’re not
 shy. It’s not overly explicit and by no means is it
 pornographic but for those of you that can’t stand the
 sight of female nudity you might want to stay away
 from this one. For the rest of us, Yudis delivers the
 ladies in spades and I’m sure Russ Meyers and Marey
 Carey fans everywhere will be grateful in spades.

 Let’s just say that I don’t think PERVERT! is going to
 be playing in the Bible Belt any time soon. Which is
 too bad for them as they’ll be messing out on a great
 piece of cinematic fun. Yeah, a movie called PERVERT!
 isn’t going to be for everyone but for those of you
 that it is for (and you know who you are) you should
 be guaranteed a pretty good time or at the very least
 some really good laughs.

 I don’t know if PERVERT!’s scheduled to debut anywhere
 any time soon and the only place I could find info for
 it was on the movie’s website www.pervertthemovie.com
 but when it does come to a theatre near you check it
 out if you’re a fan of John Waters or, obviously, Russ
 Meyer. It should be just the cure that ails you if
 you’re sick of the usual Hollywood go around.

--- Kristian Horn

 Check out my website:
 www.superheroicstudios.com

 Check out my blog:
 http://blog.myspace.com/kristianhorn