What is really the huge difference between the 1st one and the 2nd one that occasionally makes people love the 1st one and hate the 2nd? They are actually extremely similar -- though I didn't realize it until the recent viewing... except the 2nd one has a bit more action and has better visuals. Obviously, the 1st one is the best, as it's the darkest (but only by a notch), but there really isn't much of a difference between 1 and 2, not to the point where I could see anyone hating the 2nd one if they love the 1st one. Plus, a 12 (I was wrong, he wasn't 14) year old kid gets brutally murdered in it! I actually find 2 really daring, in a way, since there's a HUUUUUUUUUUUUGE chunk of the movie where Robocop isn't even in it! Like 30 minutes without him even in it!
Now that I've watched the film, it wasn't as Giuseppe-like as I thought it'd be. Yeah, there is a resemblance in the camcorder/no-budget aesthetic/focusing on the denizens of impovishered "trailer towns"/the whole "series of loosely-connected vignettes" in place of story (and, again, that only speaks for a very small fraction of Giuseppe's films, he has an extremely diverse filmography, at least judging by the 34 films I've seen of his), but the humor and tone was a lot different. And, frankly, to me, the film just wasn't as good as any of Giuseppe's stuff; it all comes down to if you find this VERY particular sort of stuff entertaining and funny, and I was mildly amused by a lot of it, and chuckled quite a bit (seeing people in old men masks humping trash WAS kinda funny!), but it just seemed to drag and drag, and there wasn't a lot to hold my attention. Whereas Giuseppe, again, filled his home-video experiments with interesting music, strange editing, and hilarious dialogue -- this just goes from blank, empty scene to blank, empty scene. There just isn't much to this, beyond the initial shock of "creepy old men mask dudes doing 'weird' stuff". I think it's about on the level of Gummo (which is just a slight step above Mister Lonely, to me) in its quality, and I was glad that it was only 77 minutes long. Not an awful film by any means, just extremely average. Julien Donkey-Boy will remain Korine's masterpiece, at least for now, thanks to its interesting editing, compelling characters/dialogue, and beautiful visuals. According to Korine, this was intended as more of an "artifact", anyway -- you know, a "parody" (for a lack of a better word here) of the kind of film you might (but probably wouldn't...) find at a thrift store, some strange home-recorded snapshot of a moment in time of some people you'd never meet, and probably wouldn't want to. I actually have bought some $1 old, unlabeled home movies from Goodwill out of curiosity, and it's usually somewhat entertaining in some strange, creepy way -- seeing people you'll never meet from 20 years ago opening Christmas presents and such, can be strangely compelling though the excitement wears off pretty quickly. This film is a tribute to that, and it suffers the same flaws. A decent experiment, with some genuinely funny moments and better than 99% of the films I've seen in the past year, no doubt, but I just feel like it was missing SOMETHING -- I'm not sure what -- that would have made me enjoy it more. A somewhat amusing diversion.
I highly reccomend a film entitled "Bride of Frank" from 1996, which has this similiar no-budget thing going on, shot on a camcorder... with some wild camcorder effects, too. It's probably the best no-budget film ever made, and shares a similarly perverse and voyeuristic sense of humor to this film, but is a lot more interesting.
5/10.