Sins of the Fleshapoids

Even at 43 minutes it's too long and drags at times. The basic idea of a robot revolt is interesting and could have had a satirical quality, but the story and characters are underdeveloped. It had a few interesting moments but nothing much comes of them. I was introduced to the Kuchar brothers, Mike and George, from the documentary It Came From Kuchar (2009). I had only heard about them in a book on cult movies by critic J. Hoberman (Midnight Movie 1983l) and the documentary gave me my first glimpse at their work. Sins of the Fleshapoids is among their most well known. From the clips included in the documentary it looked amusing. If it ran about fifteen or twenty minutes it might have been better. Obviously it's taken to be a satire and the use of word bubbles similar to those in comic strips gives it that style. I recommend watching the documentary before watching this.

'Sins of the Fleshapoids' is the first film Mike Kuchar, little lesser known twin brother of George Kuchar, directed himself. The film tells a story set about million years in the future where people have become lazy and selfish, so they have human like robot salves to serve them, who are called Fleshapoids. Two androids develop feelings towards each other.

'Sins of the Fleshapoids' is deliberately campy and sleazy that was produced on minimal budget. The film became quite a success of midnight movies. 'Sins of the Fleshapoids' (along with other Mike Kuchar film 'The Craven Sluck') became a mayor influence on John Waters' films.

The theme that recurs throughout "Fleshapoids" is Howard Hanson's Second Symphony ("Romantic"). And yes, it's the same music used in "Alien." This film is a brilliant amalgamation of cinema rhetoric, fairy tale, pop art and cartoon. The typical Hollywood "love" scene, for example, is distorted way beyond familiarity. I can't think of any film that has such wonderful art direction on such a modest budget (Kuchar used his own crayon drawings, plastic fruit from Woolworth's, murals made with interior paint, etc.). As with many films from the Kuchar brothers, it's the original blend of music, voice-over and image that stuns you, leaving you either in tears of laughter.

My first of Mike Kuchar. The "other" Kucahr.

This is very interesting but it kinda makes me sad when this apparently is his most popular film. There is something here but I felt like this could go another go in the editing room/just script though I love the vision.

In general, it hits my favorite kind of underground film, when the director had a great flat and everything is just colorful set pieces where the character jump over but there is a lot of problems here. This definitely could have ended a few short minutes ahead. It goes into this weird place it just goes on and on without really changing anything in terms of pace or tension AND it could have been eliminated.

Not my cup of tea.

If anyone knows what the melodramatic piece of music is that keeps being repeated throughout the movie, please let me know.

It sounds like the closing theme to Alien, but this film is 15 years older than that.

By the way, ignore the negative comments that others have recorded about this film. This is a campy underground movie, not some mass-market film. Judge it on what it is, not what you think it should be! I wouldn't criticize Scorpio Rising because it's not Easy Rider!

And who keeps going on about Plan 9 From Outer Space in this day and age anyway?