EXISTO

1999 | DIR. COKE SAMS | REVIEW BY GLENN COCHRANE.

What the fuck have I just watched? Seriously... What. The. Fuck!?? Let me explain how I came across this mind-melting, insane and perplexing film. I am a HUGE Ernest P Worrell fan and recently I've been going on a bit of an Ernest bender. This includes his films, TV series, TV specials & commercials (I really do love the guy). Just when I thought that I had seen and owned everything Ernest-related I stumbled across this film.

Existo is a magician character from the tv series HEY VERN, IT'S ERNEST, which was a G rated Saturday morning children's program. With the same writer/director behind this (Coke Sams), Existo has been lifted out of the family-friendly Ernest universe and given his own fully R-rated film. Tagging along are most of the same players from the Ernest camp including Jim Varney (Ernest himself). Yesterday I was watching this Existo character perform silly tricks for kids and tonight I saw him being sexually perverse with a woman, sing "Fucking A" to an audience and .... I also saw a man have his scalp lifted from his head and his wife scrape food inside... I can't even explain all of the other stuff. lol. There's loads of singing and general randomness... 

​EXISTO is a film unlike any other. It is an experimental mind-fuck that will truly do a number on you... this is the very definition of avent garde and for all of its perplexities and surrealism it is entirely absorbing. I never understood what I was watching but I was loving it. I doubt the film even got a release. It doesn't exist on DVD or VHS and there is very little about it mentioned on line (aside from a basic IMDb listing). The good news is that it is available in its entirety on YouTube. Click the link and see it for yourself. An R rated spin-off from a G rated kids show. You will also be asking yourself WHAT THE FUCK!? 

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