There are works that shock because of their subject matter. There are works that shock almost inadvertently because they experiment with technique. There are those that shock intentionally for political reasons. Then there’s Bryan Johnson’s Vulgar, a film that pushes every button imaginable – and some that may not have even been imagined – but seems to lack any set agenda. Vulgar follows its own peculiar, wildly funny and demented course, simultaneously evoking and parodying everything from cheesy exploitation films, rape docudramas, revenge thrillers, domestic horror films and pot-fuelled hybrid films. It exists, quite brazenly, in a category of its own.

Produced by indy iconoclasts Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier, Vulgar details the misadventures of Will, a struggling professional clown. Eternally optimistic, he is determined to make a living performing at kids’ parties. He is the ultimate shlemazle – picked on by the neighbourhood juvenile delinquents, and encroached on by the local drunks (who like to sleep in his car and carouse on his lawn). And there’s his bedridden mother, a resident of the Broken Elms rest home, who verbally abuses him and then tries to beat him up.

In a moment of creative and economic hysteria (his mother’s run-down rest home is surprisingly expensive), he decides to re-invent himself as Vulgar, the transvestite clown who shows up to shock bachelor party denizens expecting sultry strippers. Unfortunately, his first gig isn’t exactly a success. Indeed, it may be one of the most shocking, extended and depraved film sequences in recent memory. When Will’s fortunes take a turn for the better, Vulgar becomes even more original. Is it about the rise of a sad-sack? A look at humanity’s boundless cruelty? Or is it a shockfest, plain and simple?

Of course, there wouldn’t be any discussion if the film weren’t propelled by a confidence rarely found in American independent cinema. Vulgar introduces a distinctive talent, all the more impressive because of the film’s weird, transgressive drive. Be forewarned though – it won’t be a film you will easily (or ever) forget.

“Spike Lee’s third film (or fourth if you count Joe’s Bed-Stuy Barber Shop – We Cut Heads) represented a quantum leap forward for a filmmaker who already had a lot on his mind and ample skills with which to communicate his ideas. It’s a film I was very inspired by, and cribbed from mercilessly for my first film. Just as Do the Right Thing takes place in a twenty-four-hour period on one small block, so too did Clerks. However, I didn’t have that much to say, whereas DTRT explodes with so much social commentary that the celluloid can hardly contain it all. Very seldom can a film artist craft a story in which everybody’s right and everybody’s wrong at the same time, and hang it on authentic and recognizable characters so wonderfully complex that their motivations are never as simple as black and white. If you’ve never seen this movie before, shame on you. Get your ass to the theatre for this special presentation that I’m proud to be introducing and get ready to be blown through the back of the theatre like a garbage can hurled through a pizza parlour window. Fight the power, eh.”

-Kevin Smith