This is the second film for this column with the words “Death” and “Toilet” in the title. The first, naturally was Amityville Death Toilet. Coincidentally, this one comes to us from Evan Jacobs, the director of Amityville Death Toilet. In fact, there are no less than SIX movies in the Death Toilet series. (Seven, I guess if you count the Amityville one as canon.) You know, to be successful in this industry, you have to find your niche and stick with it. I guess Jacobs’ niche is death and toilets.
Brett (Mike Hartsfield) returns home from Vietnam (somehow sporting a Van Halen shirt) to find his brother has died under mysterious circumstances. On top of that, he has to deal with his toilet making weird moaning noises at all hours of the day. He eventually calls a plumber who can’t find anything wrong with it, despite it having “bad vibes.” (“I’m a plumber! I’m not a priest!”) When that fails, he calls a priest (Isaac Golub) to perform an exorcism on his toilet.
The film benefits from a solid opening scene where the toilet cuts a guy’s balls off while he’s taking a shit. There’s also a funny scene where Hartsfield interrogates the toilet at gunpoint, and it talks in a series of farts. The best bit though is the montage where he goes through the phone book calling up churches and getting quotes on toilet exorcisms.
Sure, some of this is crude both in terms of humor and filmmaking. There are a lot of jump cuts, and the martial arts training montage goes on way too long. However, when it hits the sweet spot between absurd and stupid, it kinda works. It’s certainly funnier than I expected, especially considering most of the movie is just one guy acting alongside a toilet. (And the fact that Amityville Death Toilet was such a… pardon the pun… turd.) The priest’s final words during the exorcism are good for a laugh too.
Say what you will about it, but I think it’s kinda hilarious that a fifty-four-minute movie has an intermission. I can honestly say I’ve never seen that before. While it isn’t great by any means, at least Death Toilet didn’t stink up the joint.
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