Three Laughs: Surfer - Teen Confronts Fear

It is hard to rate some trashy films. Films can be really good entertainment in spite of themselves, and it is an even better pleasure to find some trash that keeps surprising you than watching most quality films. My friend says that he knows a trash film is worth something if it gets three laughs out of me. I mean proper, good belly laughs when you can't believe what the film is showing to you. That's as good a rating as any for these movies. Any film that has these three laughs has a special place in my heart.

Surfer: Teen Confronts Fear (USA, 2018)
Director: Douglas Burke

One might think once you have seen The Room, you have reached an absolute nadir of so-bad-its-hard-to-believe quality. You would be wrong. Tommy Wisesau might have been an auteur that sabotaged every part of the film he was involved in (ig. acting, directing, producing, writing), but at least his cameraman managed to shoot sharp shots. Another important thing is the self-importance and deluded belief in the film one is making. You can't copy the sort of enthusiasm.

Well, move over Tommy, since here comes Douglas Burke, auteur and physics professor at USC. He has directed, written, produced and stars in Surfer. As well as the soundtrack is based on tunes hummed by him. The film's main role is played by his son, Sage Burke, who doesn't seem to be quite as enthusiastic about the art they are creating. It would appear that the titular teen looks so antsy for the most of the movie as if would rather be surfing than listening to his old man's inane monologues throughout the movie.

The super-low budget movie is supposed to be a life-affirming lecture with overt Christian overtones. The titular teen has traumas from  surfing in too massive waves and now has a fear of the ocean. He confronts the spectre of his long-lost father (made, according to him, from squid ink and electricity), who gives him mystical advice on how to confront one's fears. The latter half sees the teen exploring what actually happened to his father, along with lots and lots of filler material about surfing, most of which seems to have been shot on a family vacation.

Three laughs (SPOILERS):

1. The main thing one gets from this movie is an idea of how much Douglas is trying to act as hard as he can. Never so much than in an endless monologue (10? 15? 20 minutes? Who can tell?) where he laments his own situation and how in the afterlife they didn't tell him how returning to life would also make him FEEL. Burke adapts a sort of Patrick Stewart imitation, I guess in order to appear Shakespearean. With lines like "I AM LIVING IN AN IRON MAIDEN OF PAIN, BOY!", laughter comes often and tears were rolling down my cheeks on both of my viewings of the movie.

2. The second half has an equally "interesting" take from Douglas, having him break the advice given in Tropic Thunder and attempts to act as a catatonic patient in a wheelchair. The astonishingly tone-deaf and ableist performance is made even sillier with the repetition, with a supervising doctor ordering Sage to repeat that he loves his father over and over again, which makes him go even further catatonic, falling from his wheelchair, and knocking open tha comically huge Coke bottle army underlings had just brought Sage, along with a huge purple plastic straw.

3. There would be plenty of good choices for the 3rd Laugh from Douglas's teachings (like the scene with a beached whale carcass, when he orders Sage to "look at it without me"), but I would like to showcase how brilliant the supporting cast are. Two regular bozos in from lunch are sent to check under cars for hidden bombs by the military, I guess in order to add to the runtime, and to show how secretive the military base really is. And Dr. Burke (Gerald James) meets an old skipper at the pier and gets a few answers out of him by presenting him "really good cognac", ie. Hennessy. The conspiracy thriller plotting went a little over my head since I was staring at the loop of a bird flying a circle across the camera or how the bad green screen effects makes the Skipper's (Mitch Feinstein) glasses disappear every time he turns his head.

Apparently there exists a black-and-white version of the film that tool the filmmakers 20 months to make. It reportedly slowly fades into color by the third act. Whichever version is possible, grab a few drinks and a few friends along and you will have a good time. Especially if you like watching footage of surfing.