Shredder Orpheus is one of the most eighties feeling films I have seen for a long time. Everything here, from fashion styles, to way of talking and music sounds ripped from that most nostalgic era. Written by, directed, and starring Robert McGinley in his debut for all three of those, this is a adaptation of the ancient legend of Orpheus and Eurydice, brought kicking and screaming into a dystopian future.
Taking place in a dystopian America, the poor and the downtrodden live in a massive town built out of shipping containers, that the inhabitants have come to call 'the grey zone'. Orpheus (McGinley) is a popular musician who has fallen in love with his dancer, Eurydice (Megan Murphy). On the eve of their wedding day, she is captured by the staff of a mysterious TV station named 'The Euthanasia Network', a station that has the ability to kill people who watch its sedate transmissions, and which exists in a place unreachable by those alive. Eurydice has been taken as the owners of the station, Hades (Gian-Carlo Scandiuzzi) and his wife, Persephone (Vera McCaughan in her sole feature film acting role) believe her dancing skills are exactly what the station needs. Orpheus manages to infiltrate the station, and is offered a chance to leave with his new wife, but his escape attempt goes wrong and he finds himself back in the real world without Eurydice. While everyone else in the grey zone moves on with their lives, Orpheus becomes obsessed with finding a route back to The Euthanasia Network in order to be reunited with his lost love.
From the very start I was enamored with Shredder Orpheus, it presents an extremely eighties punk version of the world, with characters wearing lots of denim, and mainly all riding around on skateboards. Most striking was the fantastic soundtrack, which on occasion is incorporated into the on-screen action. The press release states this is a rock opera, I wouldn't go as far as that, but music is essential to the story being told. From the grey zone side of things, I loved all the music here, some great percussion based tracks, and a cool song where guitarists played their guitars that are suspended from wires from the ceiling. The world of the film is very cluttered, full of trash and open fires, but also full of life for the denizens living there. From cool skater kids, to trash-yuppies, all speaking their own lingo, with a free living sense of life.
The Euthanasia Network is the polar opposite, made up of narrow grey coloured corridors, this place seemed devoid of life, which seeing as it's an analogy for the Greek underworld is fitting. Time spent here is only roughly a quarter of the film, but it did manage to suck some life out of the movie, perhaps its intentions. The drab sets occupied by people covered in grey make-up. There were some cool ideas here, such as a 'river' of shredded paper that Orpheus has to wade through.
At times this became quite arty, with sequences of people doing skateboarding tricks, or full songs being played by bands. Being based on a very old myth, it makes some of the more surreal parts of this make a kind of sense. Characters were for the most part very memorable. I liked how Orpheus only became the protagonist at the end of the first act, with it seeming before this that Axel (Steven Jesse Bernstein), the disabled PTSD afflicted veteran would be the lead. Orpheus did keep a lot of his thoughts to himself, and while his goal was obvious, there wasn't really a good read on his character throughout the movie. Hades I guess could be called the antagonist force here, though he doesn't really have too much interaction with the hero. Mainly, his network appears on TV sets, a trippy dreamlike vibe, with McCaughan really shining as the main voice of this network.
I spent the first eight years of my life in the eighties, yet I admit that my memories of it are not the strongest, and certainly I would have been oblivious to the more cool elements of that decade. It is probably the decade I have the most bittersweet nostalgia for, and so I love films from that time. Shredder Orpheus is a fantastic example of one of those, fiercely eighties in style, this great slice from time was a weird and wonderful film. Shredder Orpheus is out now on Blu-ray, check out the Vinegar Syndrome store for access to the limited edition spot gloss slipcover edition, limited to 2,000 units.
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