UNDERBELLY

Produced by Eric Spudic, Louis Vockell, Chris Mackey, David C. Duncan, Houston Daddy, Bill Blaze, Robert J. Olin, Edward Wolford Jr., Zaz Blandaar, Zip Armstrong, Joe Sherlock, and M. Edward Hegg.
Written, Directed, and Edited by Joe Sherlock
Director of Photography - Joe Sherlock

Tom - Tom Shaffer
Pamela - Tamra Redmond
Jack - Robert J. Olin
Professor McNicholas - David C. Duncan
Melissa - Heather Storm

Like a war metal on a proud general's chest, Joe Sherlock loudly proclaims the amount of skin he was able to pack into his micro-noir thriller UNDERBELLY. Hell, the only way he could have crammed in more skin would have been to have his entire cast break into Old Calcutta and roll around in the buff. It's almost a shame since there's much more fun to be had with the movie.

UNDERBELLY has been referred to as nerd-noir, which is an oxymoron if I've ever heard one. Noir is the essence of all that is cool and smooth in thriller cinema; any nerd-like qualities would clearly negate this. No, UNDERBELLYis more of a soft-boiled crime thriller where those nerd-qualities take the edge off the darker elements. Think Fred Olen Ray for the Dungeons and Dragon's crowd...and that's not a knock.

Now that I think about it, our hero, Tom, is just the kind of character you would expect to find in the basement of the campus science building on a cold winter's eve countering the forces of darkness with a roll of the dice. Not very assertive, attractive, or athletic, Tom is the kind of disposable cinematic shlep any normal director would kill-off early on, but Joe Sherlock is not "any normal director." He's the Dungeon Master...the kind of director who feels right at home among stuttering jellyfish like Tom.

To curb the banality of his existence, Tom agrees to deliver his professor's car across country to the man's niece. It's his one chance to get out of town before spring semester, and with no money or a ride of his own, it's rare Tom ever sees the outside of the science building basement. But Tom doesn't figure on the dead body in the trunk, or the gangsters who put it there, or the strippers who were once friends with the deceased. No, Tom figured he'd get some fresh air and see a few trees, not the seedier side of the Oregon underworld.

Does Oregon really have an underworld? I'm sure those lumberjacks could do a real number on some kneecaps with a Louisville slugger, but one has to wonder...

Now the underworld in UNDERBELLY is the kind that only exists in the world of movies. Hookers with heart of gold...hookers that are attractive...hookers who throw freebies at guys like Tom. That aspect could work against the movie if it weren't such a fish-out-of-water comedy. The point of UNDERBELLY isn't to examine any aspect of crime or crime culture, but to see how a guy like Tom would perceive a world of crime, and Sherlock stays true to the character of Tom throughout. At no time is Tom ever heroic, and he's never given an arch. Tom lumbers through the movie just as he would through life, in stunned disbelief that anything in his life could be the slightest bit exciting.

I've only seen a handful of Joe Sherlock pictures and I'm hard-pressed to call any of them "good," at least from a technical standpoint. But everything his movies lack in polish they make up for in giddy, b-movie fun. His movie ODD NOGGINS still ranks as the strangest b-effort anyone has sent me. People who can appreciate movies from that point of view are probably the only ones who should seek out his work. Everyone else will miss the joke.

The VHS contains bloopers, out-takes, and behind-the-scenes material revealing just how much fun this movie must have been to make.

Dr. Squid