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The best way to summarize “Shredder Orpheus” is if “Gleaming the Cube” and “Videodrome” had a torrid violent, sexual love affair while high on shrooms that projected new wave music videos in to their brains, all the while the pair ended their rendezvous with a round of skateboarding. Courtesy of Boom! Cult and AGFA, Robert McGinley’s VHS SOV genre film is simultaneously oddly entertaining but also incredibly mind numbing. It’s a dystopian tale that seems to be working toward some kind of coherency at times, but occasionally gives up in exchange of using the budget to showcase skateboarding. In lieu of story there are just aimless scenes of people skateboarding.
And there are more scenes of people skateboarding. And when you think they’ve had their fill, there are more scenes of people skateboarding. And just when you think “Shouldn’t we get back to the whole point of the narrative involving this death cult, and this weird television station?” No, they just follow that up with more skateboarding. That is not to say that they’re poorly shot, they just don’t serve a purpose to anything remotely interesting in the narrative. The director makes it painfully clear that they love skateboarding, but the element doesn’t do much to expand on this world that they have set up. Why is skateboarding the primary mode of transport?
The “mortal” world faces imminent destruction when Hades unleashes an evil television signal that. Sublimates and kills its viewers. These hypnotic broadcasts from EUTHANASIA BROADCAST NETWORK are seducing the masses – except skateboard-guitarist Orpheus and his band of “SHREDDERS” who can see through this nefarious scheme. To save the world and his kidnapped wife, Orpheus must penetrate the world of the dead and free the television airwaves. Armed with a futuristic guitar and a skateboard from Hell, Orpheus storms onto the EBN stage to liberate the airwaves and rescue his wife.
Nevertheless, when “Shredder Orpheus” decides to buckle down and tell a story, it devotes a lot of time to a ton of filler. This involves scenes of musical performances in front of what look like actual audiences, and not a lot of emphases on our hero Orpheus. “Shredder Orpheus” clocks in at a hundred minutes, and I’d say if the filler were cut, we’d be left with about an hour of actual, honest narrative. The director doesn’t even seem to know what kind of movie he’s making as mid-way there’s this sudden narration to kid of clear everything up for the audience.
The dystopian world is interesting, which is something. I liked the whole idea of overcrowding resulting in a society of people living in shipping containers, as well as focusing on this world detached from the outside. If you fancy yourself a lover of Shot on Video genre films, then “Shredder Orpheus” might be the movie that tickles your fancy. It’s such a surreal, confusing mix of ideas, and concepts with the illusion of a narrative lost somewhere in the fold.