CONJOINED * USA 2013 Dir: Joe Grisaffi. 77 mins
Cam girl watching geek Tom Long falls in love with a pretty blonde (Michelle Ellen Jones) he meets online and, when they move in together, discovers her well-kept secret to be a somewhat unhinged Siamese twin (Keefer Barlow). Early efforts to set Barlow up with a suitable suitor fail when a succession of Jesus freaks, fetishists and D & D nerds show up, and anyone insensitive about the twins is gruesomely bumped off thanks to Barlow’s psychotic tendencies.
A heavy-handed would-be horror comedy, this revives unwelcome memories of Hollywood’s attempt to make Siamese twins hilarious, STUCK ON YOU, but proves far worse. Too much screen time is spent with a gratingly unfunny, ball-busting female cop, and the humour veers desperately between mild cock-biting splatter, corpse disposal and coy foursomes. Director Grissafi crosses over the bad taste line with a bloody necrophilia sequence in which the necrophiliac keeps his boxers on the whole time; the result is drab rather than funny or shocking. You’re left pondering what Stuart Gordon or Herschell Gordon Lewis may have done with this storyline back in their respective heydays.
Review by Steven West
