You don’t have to be insane to inhabit the daft bizarro dimension in which the writer-stars Josh Sharp and Aaron Jackson situate the Dada-on-Horny-Goat-Weed delirium of Dicks: The Musical, but it helps. That said, you do have to have an enduring love for – or at the very least, an appreciation for the distinct tonalities of – musical theater, the petri dish that incubated this special little mutant abomination. What began as an Off-Broadway sensation titled Fucking Identical Twins enters cinemas clawing and snarling, odds-on the American entertainment industry’s most insistently and consistently strange, grotesque creation this year. And if not that, it’s a safe bet that it’s still the only one with a disembodied, talking, flying pudenda.
The particular brand of “stupid and we know it” ebullience native to the stage is an acquired taste all but guaranteeing a love-it-or-loathe it response to a true passion project that’s always known its audience and refused to worry about anyone else. Sick puppies amenable to its piquant mix of vibrato-voiced camp and gross-out shenanigans will probably quote it on their deathbeds, but the vast majority of respectable citizens will get in a few blinks of disbelief before fleeing the theater. It’s plain to see that that’s just how Sharp and Jackson like it, the moral to be yourself – incestuous urges and all – lying buried underneath a thick layer of partially masticated deli ham. Few films so violently, deludedly believe in themselves, and even if the high pitch of its humor makes one want to plug their ears, this jazz-handed freakshow demands some measure of respect for the simple fact of its dumbfounding, throbbing existence. With a rictus smile shellacked on its face, the film grapevines along the razor-thin line between annoying idiocy and demented inspiration.
