If you were like me, you enjoyed comedy that was left of center, stuff like WONDER SHOZEN, which aired on MTV2, and XAVIER: RENEGADE ANGEL, which aired on Adult Swim. Both of these were co-created by Vernon Chatman, who wrote this film I’m reviewing today, FINAL FLESH. The film is about a family of four who live next to the site of a nuclear explosion and the aftermath of that event. What Chatman did instead of going to Hollywood to get his film made, the script was broken down into four parts, and each part was sent to four different companies who specialized in custom adult fetish content with the only caveat being that the scripts be followed to the letter. Thus, FINAL FLESH was born, if you’ve seen either of the shows I mentioned above, you can have a sort of grasp of the utterly bizarre going on’s you’re going to witness. More so on the XAVIER end of the spectrum, increasingly bizarre as each set piece goes on. The fact that these are not professional actors or filmmakers at all that were tasked with making each segment adds to the weird, because in their line of work they’ve had to have seen so much bizarre stuff, and most of the actors just go for it. I’ve truly never seen a movie quite like FINAL FLESH, and I doubt I will see anything like it in the near future.

AGFA bring FINAL FLESH to Blu-Ray in collaboration with Drag City. On the picture quality front, the case states that it is a “preservation from the original digital video master” and that certainly shows when you watch the film. Given how the film was made, you really can’t critique the video quality, this was shot on mid 2000’s digital video, not much you can do with that, it’s certainly watchable, but there are obvious limitations. Same can be said about the audio, the audio is presented in 2.0 stereo and is perfectly serviceable, the score dominates the track, and dialogue is clear, though sometimes when someone starts screaming it starts to distort pretty bad, but again, the limitations of the production are at fault there, overall, for what it is, audio and video are perfectly fine.

There is a nice little slate of bonus features included on the disc, first of which is an introduction to the film by ON CINEMA host Gregg Turkington. It’s a treat seeing him show up to give the film an introduction, especially if you’re a fan of On Cinema. Next you have a music video for the Bonnie “Prince” Billy track “Lay and Love” that was co-directed by Vernon Chatman. The most substantial extra on the disc is a new alternate score that was recorded by Six Organs of Admittance mastermind Ben Chansy, which in my opinion, adds a whole other level of the film, and I absolutely recommend watching it with this track. The disc is rounded out by a funny reel of outtakes, a PFFR ad, and the films trailer

-Billy Jarrett