Friday 5 October 2012

Short Film Review - Fat Kid Massacre (2012 - Dir. Joseph Durbin)


I'm aware of our nation's love of laughing at fat people. Especially fat people running, skipping or bouncing on trampolines. You've only got to turn on the telly to be bombarded by reality shows featuring the above activities, all in the name of improving the participants' health. Yeah right. Why aren't there any programmes where anorexics are fed Ginsters and forced to watch telly all day? There could even be a sneaky toilet cam to check that they aren't chucking up their gorgeous pasties. Clearly that would be deemed offensive in the eyes of the public and studio executives, anorexics are worthy of our support and respect after all, whereas fat people are fair game.



Fat Kid Massacre is basically one of the above programmes but in short film format. It even has the obligatory fat people running in slow-motion shot. 

The story concerns some 'Fat Bullies' and 'Ian: The Skinny Bitch' (their words, not mine). If that doesn't set the tone, I don't know what does. Obviously, the bullies go and do their bullying routine on Ian. He gets miffed and decides to get revenge. Amusingly, one of the comments on YouTube is from someone who thought that they shouldn't have revealed the killer. Who else could it be? There are only four characters: three of them are 'Fat Bullies'. It doesn't take any Thelma style deduction to work it out.



As a bit of a Mac boy, this screams iMovie. The sound effects are very familiar and are not used that effectively. The only creative choice that I appreciated was the decision to show the force feeding of one of the 'Fat Bullies' in one continuous shot. Not convinced that it would have killed him but it is some impressive eating.

Anyone who goes out and makes a film has to be applauded due to the hard work involved, but the material is disappointing and cynically aimed at twelve year olds. The film-makers are looking for funding to turn this into a full feature. Sadly, there will be a market for it, but I wouldn't want to see a longer version of this. I'll post the full short below so that you can decide for yourself.
1/10
evlkeith

NB For those wondering, this review is in no way based on my personal weight. I enjoy the odd pasty. But I also enjoy salad.




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