Penis Boy

[StevePulaski]

Penis Boy (2015)
Directed by: James Healey

James Healey, the director of the short film Penis Boy.

Rating: ★

James Healey's short film Penis Boy has been making the rounds of the popular social networking site Letterboxd, which is dedicated to film and film appreciation. The short has spread like a virus, with its curiously strange poster and bizarre title being paraded front and center on many peoples pages and leading a number of curious parties to watch it. It may indeed be the first viral short film.

I'm unable to determine if Healey's short film is a legitimate effort to be taboo and shocking or a simple act of "trolling" politically correct internet users, similar to this week's senseless hashtag campaign to boycott Star Wars VII for its alleged "anti-white" agenda. Whatever its purpose is, this is a short film that's not half as clever as it wants to be nor as offputting or as taboo as thinks it is, operating on a field ripe with misogyny and stupidity that doesn't deserve your attention.

The short concerns a retired prostitute (Kate McLeod), who, upon being requested for another threesome with a client from months past and offered $5,000 for her services, is battling suicidal tendencies while planning to perform this last job. In the meantime, the short focuses on a crack addicted bum, a strange loudmouth in an Iron Man-mask, and a vulgar young boy (the titular character) who winds up finding the prostitute at her worst, most helpless moment.

The film opens with footage of a scantily clad model posing and parading herself before a blank background whilst narrating how freeing and lavish the life of a prostitute is. She states how she loves the fact that she can lie on her back all day and, in turn, shop for whatever she wants, uncaring if her clients are single and lonely or married and unsatisfied. The film is put together in an episodic manner that, in turn, creates a supreme level of disjointedness that allows for characters to randomly enter and exit at their leisure. There is no acting or narrative consistency and it's remarkable just how unfunny and boring Penis Boy manages to be.

But the coffin-sealing nail here is the short just isn't funny; I can't call it offensive, for it's far too lame-brained and ridiculous to merit such a term and labeling it at such gives it unnecessary credit. This is a short film made by someone who, instead of trying to make something with artistic merit, narrative complexity, or any kind of thematic relevance, has decided to go for the lowest common denominator of shock and awe simply for attention. The end result, with that in mind, is as bad and as desperate as you'd expect.

Starring: Kate McLeod, Collin Blackard, Jon Necaj, Alfred Rosenblatt, and Andrew Sydor. Directed by: James Healey.