BAG BOY LOVER BOY (2014) ****

You know the old adage:  They don’t make them like they used to.  I don’t think they ever made them like Bag Boy Lover Boy.  I mean it kind of feels like a sleazy update of the old roughies from the ‘60s where “photographer’s models” met untimely demises after running afoul of a sadistic shutterbug.  However, it’s done with a singularly weird vision and anchored by one of the greatest performances of mind-boggling, otherworldly lunacy I’ve seen in a long while.  I guess what I’m getting at here is, Bag Boy Lover Boy is a goddamn modern classic.

Lonely Albert (Jon Wachter) works at a hot dog stand.  He longs for the love of a customer who is nice to him but would never in a million years sleep with him.  A sleazy photographer named Ivan (Theodore Bouloukos) gets one look at his unusual features and tricks him into posing for a series of lurid photos at Albert’s expense.  Albert desperately wants to become a photographer to impress his customer crush, but Ivan only strings him along in order to get his pictures taken.  Eventually, the unhinged Albert takes to luring hookers and drunks to his studio where he kills, photographs, and violates (in that order) his models.  

It sounds simple.  It is simple.  What is unexplainable is how fucking bizarre Wachter’s performance is.  This is one of the wildest, most Wiseau-ian performances in a long time.  He looks goofy and has an accent that is impossible to place.  I have no idea if that was part of his character or if he really speaks that way.  (I guess that’s why they call it “acting”.)  I do know that his line delivery and bewildered expressions lead to some giant laughs.  Wachter hasn’t done anything before or since.  Maybe that’s for the best.  I don’t know if he could ever equal the tour de force he delivers here.  

I don’t know how others will feel about the film.  The kills aren’t graphic, but there’s a strange mix of horror, comedy, and tragedy going through each sequence that it makes for a unique experience.  Some viewers will be put off by Wachter’s performance alone.  Some will be perplexed by the odd tone.  If you’re like me though, and you’ve thought you’ve seen it all, Bag Boy Lover Boy is confirmation that you haven’t seen nothing yet.