As much as I appreciate the odder and quirkier side of the film world, even I must admit that it doesn’t always work, especially when it comes across as a deliberate attempt at a cult film. The Dark Backward is one such case, an intentionally gross and harsh dark comedy with a twisted style reminiscent of John Waters, Terry Gilliam, David Lynch, and Tim Burton. On paper, that sounds like a must-see for strange movie fans, but the end result seems to go so overboard in trying to be weird, dark, and cruel that it becomes draining and winds up feeling like a pale imitation of what those directors’ try to accomplish. We’ll get more into things later, but for now, let’s briefly go over the plot.
Marty Malt is a meek dork of a man who lives in the dilapidated part of town and performs standup comedy at a local nightclub. He wants to make it big as a comedian, but his jokes are crushingly lame and only his insanely chipper friend and coworker Gus seems to find them at all funny. Add to this his low-end job as a garbageman, his dying relationship with his girlfriend Rosarita, and the fact that almost everyone in this film is a colossal jerk to him, including his own mother and even Gus in a way, and it would seem like things couldn’t possibly get much worse for him. That is, until the day he finds a large lump growing out of his back. The doctor, who clearly couldn’t care less about the situation, tells him to just leave it alone and it will go away, but the lump has other plans. By the next day, it morphs into what looks like baby’s arm, and by the day after that, it’s a new fully-grown arm. Because of this, his girlfriend leaves him, his mother disowns him, and the nightclub fires him. However, Gus shines a small ray of hope on Marty, and convinces him to meet with this agent that he knows. The agent had already come to see Marty’s standup once and walked out due to its horrible quality, but now he thinks that Marty’s third arm could be their ticket to stardom. Marty starts performing as Desi the Three-Armed Wonder Comic, wherein he tells the same bad jokes, but after every “rib-tickler,” he spins around and shows off his arm while Gus plays the accordion on the side. Even though this doesn’t seem to thrill the audiences he performs for, it’s seen as enough of a hit to get them a deal with an agent from L.A. Things are finally looking up until tragedy strikes the day before they’re supposed to leave for Hollywood. Obviously, I won’t spoil the ending, but as you could probably guess, things take a turn for the worse on Marty’s end, though he still receives something of a happy ending, ultimately.
This film is clearly trying to be hyper-stylized weird cult movie what with its use of off-kilter and dark settings (the nightclub, Marty’s rundown apartment, a TV show stage that almost looks like it exists in a black void, etc.), striking colors (blue and green atmospheric lighting, teal and purple suits, etc.), carnival music for the soundtrack, and strange camera angles and movement (especially the use of close-ups). Within this style, it tries to tell a dark and demented tale of life’s cruelty and the fleeting nature of success, but the main problem seems to be that it’s stuck somewhere between the entertainment of its style and the harshness of its subject matter. Practically all of the people in Marty’s life, and even the fates themselves really, just seem to despise him, even in ludicrous ways such as blaming him for the third arm growing out of his back (as if he did it on purpose). While this does allow us to sympathize with Marty and even relate to him in some ways, as I’m sure many of us have failed at our goals or had folks in our lives that were horrible to be around, the cruelty towards and manipulation of this nebbish man is never truly funny or entertaining, and after a while you just want to put him out of his misery. I think the “cruelty and manipulation” concept is encapsulated in Marty’s friend Gus. Gus comes across as the sort of guy who acts very friendly and says that he cares about you, even seemingly doing you favors, but underneath all that you can tell that he really only cares about himself and, at worst, wants to use you. He may tell Marty that he’s a great comedian and help him get gigs, but he’ll also use Marty’s deformity like a side-show attraction to impress the women he bangs, get with Marty’s ex-girlfriend while telling her that Marty doesn’t want her anymore (and later tell Marty that she’s not interested in getting back together), blame and/or dig at Marty whenever something goes wrong, and ultimately use Marty as a way to get himself ahead. In a way, I think Gus is an analogue of the film itself: tries to be entertainingly weird on the surface, but hits too close to home in its grimmer aspects to ever reach that cartoonish dark cult comedy threshold. This is not to say that having horrible people as your main characters or even having a perpetual butt-monkey character in a film can’t ever work. Forbidden Zone, a film we looked at previously, has plenty of jerk characters and a guy who constantly gets dunked on by those around him. However, that film went all the way with its weird world and presentation to the point where the cruelty didn’t feel so overwhelming, and Squeezit, the butt-monkey of the film, still had generally good friends in his life who he would ultimately put himself on the line for. The Dark Backward doesn’t have either of those qualities (or at least something else as an equivalent) and becomes a drudge to sit through as a result. I should note before we wrap up that the film was clearly trying to impart a lesson of sorts about the fleeting nature of fame/gimmicks and, as I said before, the film ends on a positive note for Marty, but the lesson is all too basic, and the ending feels too little too late for there to be any good reason to sit through this film.
This film ended up being a disappointing prospect, but in a way, I’m still glad I saw it. Sometimes it is important to consume unsuccessful projects as they can be a good example of how something can go wrong. Films can become so wrapped up in being a certain thing that they can go overboard in the wrong areas and not far enough in the right ones. It can be tricky to find the right feel or direction to go with a film, but for every attempt that doesn’t work out, there will always be another that does. If you’re still interested in watching this film, then I won’t stop you, but keep in mind you might have to have a pretty coarse sense of humor to find this film enjoyable, at least in my view. Either way, I hope that filmmakers will strive to make more strange films in the future, just don’t get too focused on trying to make it a cult hit, as that’s often the exact way to not have it be one at all.