Film Review: Sloppy the Psychotic (2012)

SYNOPSIS:

Meet Mike, A man whose only goal in life was to bring joy to children… As “Sloppy the Clown”. After a cruel twist of fate finds him without his beloved job he goes into business for himself. After a bout of bad luck Mike spirals completely out of control. Witness a good man go bad, then totally mad in… Sloppy the Psychotic.

REVIEW:

I actually really enjoy films that cross the boundaries of good taste. In fact, I love many of them. Today, I watched a film called “Sloppy the Psychotic” that crosses pretty much every boundary you can think of. So I should be excited right? Well I’m not. Nor am I disgusted by what I saw. I wanted to like the film but I just couldn’t find anything to get in to. There really isn’t much of a narrative and almost no character development. It doesn’t need to go overboard with the character stuff, I just never latched on to anything here. I will say this, many of the effects looked good.

Mike (Mike O’Mahony) works as a clown and calls himself Sloppy. Everyone seems to always be down on him. His parents (who he lives with) want him to find a real job and some of the locals who know him can’t stop making fun of him. After a chance meeting with an old friend, things seem to be looking up for the clown. While Sloppy is on a job, one of the kids draws a picture that he takes offense to. The mother flips out and calls Sloppy’s boss which costs Mike his job. He quickly falls into a deep depression and begins drinking. His descent moves quickly and he is soon slicing and dicing the locals that get in his way.

I didn’t hate “Sloppy the Psychotic”, nor was I very impressed either. It went back and forth for me. The use of practical effects was pretty awesome but I just wasn’t feeling the humor or the story. I am not very familiar with Mr. O’Mahony’s previous film “Deadly Detour” so I wasn’t prepared for what “Sloppy” had to offer. I will start with the good. If you’re a practical effects fan, there is much to gush over. Some of the kills were bland, but there are a few gems that made me smirk and think, “Niiiiice!!” There are plenty of hacked limbs, anal penetration, and blood spewing for the type of gorehound who doesn’t care much about anything else. There is a strong attempt at injecting humor into the film. Most of the jokes fell flat on me but the ones that came from what felt like actual human dialogue made me chuckle.

What I didn’t like was that the film never actually felt like one cohesive story. There was a bit of a setup that was working, but it just seemed that after the first fifteen or twenty minutes, they just said “screw it” and started to just throw together sequences. Some things were introduced but there was no follow through. That is always frustrating when you see the potential for an interesting storyline or have some sort of resolution that is overlooked for shock value. Speaking of shock value, the ending of this film is just nuts. I wasn’t really amused by it, it was incredibly mean spirited (as is the rest of the film which I am sure was the director’s intention) and graphic. I won’t divulge in any details since I am sure many of you will dig this film, it just wasn’t my cup of tea.

Mike O’Mahony made the type of film that he wanted to make on his own terms. For that I will applaud him. For me, I just couldn’t connect to the material and enjoy it. There were things that I did like, there were things that I didn’t like. Do I recommend “Sloppy the Psychotic”? I don’t think I would. That isn’t to say that the audience for this film doesn’t exist. I’m sure they are out there, I’m just not one of them. I’m giving the film ** (out of 5) mostly because I appreciated the effort and enjoyed the effects. I can’t completely hate a film where someone is forced to drown in their own piss.

Sloppy the Psychotic (2012)