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PERVERT GOES HOME
Produced by Jay Bauman and Ryan Erke
Written and Directed by Jay Bauman
Edited by Mike StoklasaArlo - Jay Bauman
Michelle - Lisa Renley
Dungeon Master - Rich Evans
Big K - Mike StoklasaOh, man. This is funny, funny stuff. Jay Bauman's PERVERT GOES HOME is a shameless comedy where the crude and demeaning jokes proudly proclaim that no subject is off-limits or taboo. Yet even with its abundance of body fluids and roadkill, PERVERT GOES HOME exudes that warm and touching sensitivity that sets the AMERICAN PIE's of the world apart from the TOMCATS. As vulgar as things sometimes get, the tone of the movie is never mean or insulting to the audience or the participants.
Arlo Jenkins is a man who was once caught masturbating in his high school locker 5 times in one day. In an effort to loose his past, Arlo sets off for college as far away as he can get in effort to start a new life. The trouble is that the scarlet "P" is branded on his forehead. No matter where he goes, he's quickly labeled a pervert. After being falsely accused of rape on his first college date, his life becomes a never-ending state of ennui and self-loathing as he moves from one dead-end job to another.
Lost in life, like so many twenty-somethings of today, Arlo lacks the ambition and drive to better himself. He would rather proclaim the state of his quagmire rather than explore the cause or search for an end. It isn't until events reach their most pathetic that Arlo returns to his hometown in an attempt to find solace in his mother's arm. He's a pathetic creature that doesn't deserve the cards life dealt, but he's so lackadaisical that he doesn't deserve a fresh deal either.
While Arlo hasn't progressed in life, he finds he's better off than those he left behind. The majority of his small-town friends have all regressed to points on the social food chain where they should have been in the tenth grade - white thugz and gas station attendants. These people have all lost the individuality that set them apart from the social cliches of their adolescence only to embrace them in adulthood. At least Arlo has stayed true to himself, a chronic masturbating pervert to the end.
It takes another outcast to point out and reaffirm Arlo's strengths, and she comes in the form of Michelle, a self-mutilating nerdy-girl who has had a crush on Arlo since the time in high school that he got his penis stuck in his bellybutton on a school trip - how this is possible I'll never know. Michelle's time with Arlo allows Bauman to explore some of Arlo's most revealing moments. To Bauman's credit, he never follows any set formula for the pair, but allows the natural outcome of their relationship to grow from the nature of the characters. In the end, Alro is one to stay true to himself and for the first time in his life he can admit it.
Bauman's moviemaking style is rudimentary but he makes up for it with pure wit. Like Kevin Smith did with CLERRKS, Bauman shows what can be achieved with the perseverance and a ton of great jokes. PERVERTS GOES HOME is just that damn funny.