Cyberpunk Review » Sixteen Tongues

April 12, 2006

Sixteen Tongues

Movie Review By: SFAM

Year: 1999

Directed by: Scooter McCrae

Written by: Scooter McCrae

IMDB Reference

Degree of Cyberpunk Visuals: Low

Correlation to Cyberpunk Themes: Medium

Key Cast Members:

  • Ginny Chin-Chin: Jane Chase
  • Adrian Torque: Crawford James
  • Alik Silens: Alice Liu
  • Rating: 3 out of 10

    Sixteen Tongues screen capture

     

    Overview: WTF!!! That pretty much sums up Sixteen Tongues. This low-budget softcore cyberpunk porn flick has potential in some of its thoughts, but just loses out in editing, movie making basics like clear dialogue and pointless filler scenes. Low budget flicks often free the director to stop paying attention to movie conventions and potentially create something unique. But to make this pay off, some of the basics of crafting still need to be worked.

     

    Sixteen Tongues screen capture

     

    The Story: In a dystopic, seedy future, where humanity is fleeting, Sitxteen Tongues follows the plight of three emotionally scarred people (one physically scarred as well). Adrian (Crawford James) is a severely scarred police officer who seemingly died in a previous conflict, but was brought back to life, and had his damaged skin repaired by replacing it with sixteen tongues. His tongue skin, which forces him to taste his own clothes and everything he touches, has since made him go crazy – he hears voices and every now and then, and randomly goes on murderous rampages. Ginny Chin-Chin is a bio-modified assassin droid who has had sexual implants causing her to organism every time she blinks her eyes. The implants help her resist the urges to kill, but she still is driven to find her maker and rip him into shreds. Alik is a hacker extraordinaire, and is Ginny’s lover. She spends her time trying to find Ginny’s maker, but also has the ability to user her equipment to ghost-hack into other’s minds.

     

    Sixteen Tongues screen capture

     

    All three characters are emotionally traumatized. Alik and Ginny spend half the movie fighting about whether they really care for one another. Adrian is caught up in his own paranoid delusions. Through a chance encounter to get ice, Ginny and Adrian meet up. Ginny goes to his room (which has porno films playing non-stop) and finds out he’s a cop. She thinks he can help her in finding her maker, so she gives him oral favors in exchange for potentially helping her. While Ginny is having sex with Adrian, Alik hacks into Adrian’s TV signal and watches them. More arguments ensue.

     

    Sixteen Tongues screen capture

     

    Eventually things come to a head due to Adrian’s paranoid delusions. In scanning Ginny’s bar-code, he knows she is a dangerous murderer, and for some reason, begins to think Ginny is actually responsible for his murderous rampages. Confrontations occur, and things spiral out of control from there.

     

    Sixteen Tongues screen capture

     

    The Set: The entire movie takes place in a few rooms in a seedy hotel with porn posters covering all the walls. The hotels don’t look at all futuristic, aside for the credit card swap machines everywhere. They do at least look very seedy and lived in, although the random people sleeping on the floor was probably overkill. Also, we eventually learn that complete sexual deviants fill virtually every hotel room.

     

    Sixteen Tongues screen capture

    Picture slightly airbrushed out in obvious places. Go here for original.

     

    The Nudity: Fair warning – Ginny Chin-Chin spends well over half the movie either in the buff, in a sheer shower-stall plastic outfit, or in her fishnet get-up. She definitely looks hawt in this, whereas Alik, also nude some of the time, is made to look as nerdy as possible. In addition, we are treated to other random nude chicks we see as the movie progresses. Blood and gore are also in high supply here.

     

    Sixteen Tongues screen capture

     

    The Props: While at first glance, this movie borders on hard core by having an oral sex scene, if you look closely (or watch the extras), you can see that this is a prop. The dildo prop has various warts on it and spurts blood. Adrian’s facial skin grafts look pretty cool, and generally look like a part of him. Alik’s hacker tools, while extremely low-tech, at least pass some minor degree of believability.

     

    Sixteen Tongues screen capture

     

    The Sound and Lighting: If there’s a place that Sixteen Tongues falls flat on it’s face, it’s the sound. The actors are clearly not that experienced, and tend to mumble their lines. Worse, McCrae, the director, doesn’t seem to mind. With this combination of poor quality sound reproduction and mumbled lines, the viewer is left to decipher the dialogue in many of the scenes by watching reactions. Adrian and Alik are the worst at this. There are a few scenes of each where the view has no possibility of figuring out what is said. The lighting is also atrocious. Constantly we get over-exposed actors or actors completely blotted out by a bright light behind them.

     

    Sixteen Tongues screen capture

    Picture slightly airbrushed out in obvious places. Go here for original

     

    The Bottom Line: Some of the ideas with Sixteen Tongues are pretty interesting. The hacker approach is very similar in some ways to Neuromancer in that it really doesn’t seem to recognize a modern internet, but instead goes towards this almost inaccessible cyberspace that only specialized hackers can use. Unfortunately, some ideas, including the Android assassin bit, and the briefly mentioned bacteria-taking over the body and mind bit are barely even explain. While the plot is problematic and the acting sub-par, it’s the basics – lighting, editing and sound that really doom Sixteen Tongues. Again though, Jane Chase as Ginny Chin-Chin does look pretty smokin in her various get-ups. So if you want to see a bizarre, edgy, low-budget approach to cyberpunk with lots of nudity and gross scenes sprinkled throughout, you might get some enjoyment out of this.

     

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    Comments

    April 12, 2006

    Case said:

    Another spot-on review. This was stricly amateur night, in every aspect possible. I’ve seen pornos that were shot better than this…seriously. That’s just plain sad. It truly looks like something someone shot with their camcorder and friends as “actors.” Pathetic. I definitely agree with you that it has some interesting ideas here and there and I’d probably rate it a little higher in CP themes than you, but overall, this was just a mind-boggling, shoddily-made mess. I guess that’s what you should expect from anything directed by someone named “Scooter.” Huge thumbs down for me, as well.

    April 13, 2006

    SFAM said:

    Hi Case - I had the themes and visuals reversed. I agree with you that it should be medium on the themes (and visuals low). And yeah - the production values were definitely “problematic” here. There were scenes were I flat out pegged the volume and STILL could not hear what was being said. Other times, the mumbling flat out couldn’t be deciphered.

    April 14, 2006

    Case said:

    I think this would make an interesting addition to your epic CP film list, as on paper (and I stress “on paper”), this would be EXTREMELY CP. However, on film, it’s just plain bad. Begging the question many of us have asked ourselves so many times - do you rate it highly just because it’s reeks of CP, even though it’s a pile of refuse on film?

    Case said:

    By the way, I had the same problem as you with the sound. I even turned on my closed captioning to see if that would help, but it didn’t have any. In all honesty, after a while, I completely stopped caring what was being said, anyway…I only wanted to see the screen get dark and little names start scrolling upwards.

    SFAM said:

    Case said, “do you rate it highly just because it’s reeks of CP, even though it’s a pile of refuse on film?”

    Hmm, do you mean cyberpunk themes and visuals or the star rating? 3 stars definitely isn’t high, so I’m guessing the themes. I think I try to separate quality from themes and visuals, but really, the movies with the highest correlation to cyberpunk themes usually, but not always, rate pretty high. Many high visuals movies rate pretty mediocre though.


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