There’s a line in that last song in Grease that has been cut out due to no one understanding what the fuck it meant in 1978: We go together like Monsturd and B-Movie Enema. And then there’s a bunch of nonsense words like someone is doing a 50s white boy scat before it says something about being remembered forever or some such shit.

Heh… scat.

Double heh… shit.

Yeah. Are you all that surprised that this blog, the one with the reference to getting your butthole tubing cleaned out because it rhymes with the word “cinema” is covering 2003’s Monsturd? Wait… You are? How? How could you possibly think I wouldn’t 1) be aware of this movie and 2) cover it here on the site? Oh… I see… I misheard you. Yeah, so no fucking shit I’m going to talk about this movie.

Now this comes from the era of indie horror-comedy that might feel like pre-history. Nowadays, with the camera on your smartphone, you can make a movie. There’s a better than nil chance that you could then sell that movie to Tubi too. But, in 2003? You not only had to have a little more expensive equipment than the device that’s become rather ubiquitous just a decade and a half later, but you also had to have someone who could distribute the movie. This is even before crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter came along that would help you raise the money to self-distribute. I’m guessing that once the film was made and presented to potential distributors, someone was the exact right vendor for a movie called Monsturd.

This is the brainchild of two writer-directors, Rick Popko and Dan West. Popko and West apparently worked together as they had to persuade co-workers to play bit parts. But, as was the case with these types of no-budget indies, it took a couple of years to shoot the movie. That’s not even counting on how long it took to get into production or how long post-production could have lasted. Now, that’s how things used to be done, kiddos. While indie movies these days may still take a long time to get made, if you have most of the physical production equipment secured already, normally you can get something into production much faster and completed in months as opposed to years once the crowdfunding cash came through.

Popko and West only directed two films, though they appeared in two others. The movie titles on their IMDb pages probably offer some insight into their sense of humor in the horror-comedies they’ve written and directed. Beyond Monsturd, they also made a 2008 sequel called Retardead. Obviously, they have their fingers knuckle-deep into the womb of comedy with these titles. The pair do have a film they wrote in production currently called Satan’s Peak.

Wait… Not Satan’s Pink? Hmm. Okay, maybe it’s a euphemism for some sort of horrifically depraved sex act that likely has something to do with butts? No? I’m kinda disappointed, guys.

Anyway… Monsturd kicks things off with a little girl unable to sleep during a storm. The girl wants her daddy to tell her a story, but he’s all like, “I always tell you stories before bed. Tell me one instead.” She warns that this one is pretty scary because it’s about a monster that eats people. She tells a tale of the good people of Butte County and the bad people doing bad things there. The worst of the worst is the evil Dr. Stern, who works at DuTech. You see, Dr. Stern is creating mutants at DuTech and wants to sell them to the government for a tidy profit.

That reminds me… I love these indie movies and cheap-o horror flicks that have scientists who have what else hanging in their labs? That’s right! A poster of the table of elements. Now… I could be wrong about this, I’m only a butt scientist, but I’m pretty sure that most chemists and scientists know their periodic table. I don’t think any scientists, at least in the age of the internet, hang a poster of it in their labs. It’s just one of those little things you see a lot in movies to signify something about a character.

Oh, if your movie has a character that is a high school kid? They have at least one sports team pennant hanging on their walls. Oh, a character likes to work in their garage on their car or has a workshop? They have a calendar with sexy girls hanging up. You’ve got a scientist in your cheap-o monster turd movie? Make sure he has a periodic table on the wall to hammer home that point.

Anyway, after getting a quick look at DuTech, we shift to a maximum security prison nearby. Somehow, a serial killer by the name of Jack Schmidt has escaped. He doesn’t use the Andy Dufresne way of escaping through a tunnel that leads him to the giant pipe of shit, which would fit in nicely with a movie called Monsturd. No, he has an older trick in the book. He leaves a dummy in his bed while he’s out and free in the nearby woods because he didn’t know Jack Schmidt about what happened in The Shawshank Redemption.

The best thing is that the prison guard actually approaches the papier mache dummy and actually smacks it to get “Schmidt” to respond to him.

Anyway, a manhunt is ordered post haste! They must find Jack Schmidt! FBI Agent Hannigan is called in so she can assist with tracking down this dangerous killer. Meanwhile, at DuTech, something Stern and his team are working on begins to show activity. A gas begins to leak, and he watches as his assistant dies by having hot fudge smeared all over her face.

With our lady agent on her way to Butte County to assist in the manhunt, it looks like we’re headed for a big ol’ collision between Schmidt and DuTech. But it isn’t exactly how you’d think. You see, Stern took his assistant and dumped her into a barrel of toxic shit that melted her. After finding an appropriate manhole along the way, they dump that toxic shit down the manhole into the sewer.

The sewer is where Schmidt goes to run away from the manhunt. Cops chase Schmidt through the sewer system near the sewage treatment plant. After they shoot him, he falls into a liquid that ultimately melts his skin off completely.

Schmidt might be dead, but that doesn’t mean Agent Hannigan is satisfied totally. She ends up taking a sample of the stuff that melted Schmidt. The stuff being as toxic as it was, Sheriff Duncan called on Stern to find out more about the chemical. This leads to Stern needing to break into the sewage plant, kill a late night worker just trying to earn a living, and then dispose of the evidence of the acidic stuff he dumped earlier in the day down the manhole.

After an odd interaction between a diner waitress and Sheriff Duncan in which she talks about competing in a chili cook-off against a guy who is making his famous “ass-kicking, bowel-bomber con carne,” which then leads into a discussion about glazed donuts before ending with Sheriff Duncan telling the waitress she should sit on his face and make it look like a glazed donut, we return to Agent Hannigan’s investigation over what stripped Jack Schmidt’s bones of its skin. It seems that whatever was in that vat was a multicelled bacterium. It merged with the chromosomes from Schmidt’s body. Meanwhile, in the sewer, an unlucky worker comes across something that smells foul and growls.

The funniest scene of this movie in the first 30 minutes really pays off the idiocy of the Butte County cops. Now, any good horror comedy should have some pretty stupid, or at least incredibly ineffective, authorities. Monsturd does not disappoint here. Not only is Sheriff Duncan propositioning diner waitresses to sit on his face and turn it into a glazed donut, but his deputies are almost childlike in how they act. Clearly, they are taking a page out of the Scream playbook by having these guys be even dumber than Officer Dewey. One of them has created a little puppet of a dope-smoking hippie to try to use in skits as outreach to kids at school to teach them about the dangers of drugs. However, he gets way too into his little skit with the puppet and he starts roughing it up like it’s a real hippie resisting arrest. It’s actually a pretty funny scene.

That’s the thing about this first act. The movie is equal parts playing it straight with the Agent Hannigan character and playing it goofy with the dopey county cops. While this is ultimately an extremely low budget movie about a shit monster with a catchy title, it’s taking itself seriously to deliver both the monster in an easy breezy way like a Jim Wynorski would as well as having some decent comedic ideas. There’s a reason why this movie is still known to fans of these ultra-low budget movies over 20 years later.

Okay, so we’ve got dots connecting all over the place. The tank that had the remains of Schmidt’s body, as well as the goop that melted it, was emptied. That was what Stern was doing when he broke into the public works facility and killed the guy just trying to make a steady living. The bacteria that Hannigan and her science nerd studied merged with Schmidt’s chromosomes. Being freed from his tank led to Schmidt, whatever he is now, to kill and basically melt the face off of the guy making his rounds in the sewer.

Later, a couple argues over the husband’s disgusting bathroom in his man cave. She won’t let him go out to see his friends until he cleans it. As he cleans the toilet (which is covered in shit), things get a little out of hand. That’s when we finally see the Monsturd in all its glory.

Take a look at this…

The Monsturd looks like something straight out of 1970s Doctor Who. I know it’s supposed to be kind of gross, right? I mean, it’s supposed to be a gooey turd. It leaves skid marks everywhere it goes. However, I’m not grossed out by it at all. I’m actually in awe of it. This is where almost all the money for the budget was dumped into. It’s great.

So that couple who argued over cleaning the bathroom? Well, the deputies went and investigated the now missing husband. Left on the wall, scrawled in shit, was “Don’t Get Caught With Your Pants Down.” It just so happened that Jack Schmidt used to kill people in the bathroom all the time and leave little quotes like that on the walls as a calling card.

The bodies begin to pile up. Using a beer can, the Monsturd lures a homeless drunk into the sewer and eats him. There are murmurs of folks who are onto the plot about there being a shit monster roaming the sewers and killing people and melting their bodies. This leads to Agent Hannigan visiting Dr. Stern to learn more about the bacteria that turned Jack Schmidt into the Monsturd. Of course, the doctor lies and claims he has no idea where a bacterium like this was created.

Hannigan is already aware that Stern is hiding something. It’s clear he created the bacterium. It’s obvious he was the one who emptied the tank that had Schmidt’s body in it. He’s covering up his own shitty mess… so to speak.

Johnny, the scientist who helped discover the strange bacteria that mutated Schmidt, comes up with an idea. Why not try to lure Schmidt into the daylight to dry him out. If not that, maybe he can get about a million flies from an entomologist to eat Schmidt. The entomologist says it will take two days to get a million flies.

Considering how prolific the Monsturd is at killing people, two days is a long time to get those flies.

So, remember I mentioned the chili cook-off earlier? Well, we’re moving into the Jaws portion of the movie. Agent Hannigan wants to keep people away from their toilets until they can get the creature. Sheriff Duncan says there’s no way they can do that. The big chili cook-off happens in two days, and it is a giant blowout that the whole town depends on for money. They have to figure out some way to stop the shit monster that will drag people down into the sewers through their toilets before everyone in town will be shitting their brains out after eating all the chili at the big blowout cook-off.

Still, they gotta try, so the Sheriff sends his deputies out with a warning for everyone in town to not use their toilets. They say it’s due to dangerous bacteria in the sewer that can crawl into people’s rectums. They offer some helpful advice as to how to do their business like: crapping in a bucket and tossing it out the front window like people in the dark ages or just flat out shit your pants.

Naturally, as Sheriff Duncan and Agent Hannigan try to tell the city council that they have to cancel the chili cook-off, it does not go over well. They talk about canceling the major source of income for the town. That’s already a non-starter. It’s when they bring up the “Shit Man” that really causes things to go off the rails for our heroic duo. They essentially get laughed out of the meeting.

Later, Dr. Stern encounters the Monsturd in the sewer. Stern explains that he is the Monsturd’s creator. The Monsturd is none-too-pleased about the condition he’s left in. He thinks about eating Stern. But Stern tells him that tomorrow is the chili cook-off. That means when there’s chili, there will be bowel movements. That means all sorts of butts on toilets for his creation to eat. Stern cuts a deal with the Shit Man (which is what Schmidt calls himself now) to be able to study him.

Later, Hannigan makes a breakthrough. She notices that the sheriff has been swigging Pepto Bismol today. The night before, the sheriff was shitfaced and needed to calm his stomach. She gets the idea that maybe the Pepto will kill the Shit Man. When she takes some from the bottle and squirts it onto the slide with the bacteria, the Pepto kills it. So the police buy all the Pepto, toilet paper, and plungers in town.

But that’s not even the only plan on stopping the Shit Man! No! The FBI scientist guy has secured the million flies from the entomologist. So the other plan is to have the police enter the sewers and lure the Monsturd out through the opening that leads to the park where the chili cook-off is. There, the sun will stun the creature long enough to have the million flies come along and devour him.

Oh, and also the evil Dr. Stern has a lackey he wants to get involved too, so there are plans all over the place.

The cops cover themselves in “body armor” (diapers) so they can go into the sewer to confront the Shit Man. They load Super Soakers up with Pepto and arm themselves with plungers while wrapped in toilet paper. The sheriff calls the sewer plant to tell the guy there that they are on the way. However, the lackey sent by Dr. Stern clubs the poor bastard and disguises himself as that guy to be there to muck up the works.

A great little addition to this big climax is with the entomologist. First, I love that the “million flies” are stored in a cat carrier that has holes all over it, but whatever. It’s something he can carry that has a loud buzzing to say “This guy has a bunch of flies in that carrier.” Second, we think things are going to go south with the big plan because when he gets into his truck, he can’t start it right away. We think he’s not going to make it to the rendezvous spot to release those flies. But it’s no big deal… The truck eventually starts, and he’s on his way. The truck not starting is an especially nice touch for a little laugh.

In the sewer, the cops are trying to find the Shit Man. The lackey Dr. Stern sent into the sewer with them runs into the Shit Man and dies. Soon, Stern himself is in the sewer, but his creation thinks the creator betrayed him. So, the Shit Man just eats Dr. Stern by dumping his dookie all over him. The big problem, though, is that the Shit Man has gotten considerably larger, complicating the whole mission with the cops and Agent Hannigan.

They eventually are able to exit the sewer with the Monsturd hot on their butts. The combination of the sun and the Pepto stuns him long enough for the entomologist’s flies to get released and eat the Shit Man entirely. The day is saved. The Shit Man is dead. The chili cook-off is still on.

The little girl finishes the story to her father by telling him that Hollywood bought the rights to the story and made a movie for $100 million.

I ain’t shittin’ ya… Monsturd is actually a fun little DIY movie. I’m sure there are people who are out there talking about how this is the worst movie ever made. It is so far from that distinction. While I’m not a huge fan of shot-on-video movies, this one actually feels a little more, uh, sophisticated? God… how am I using the word sophisticated for Monsturd? Maybe I should say it’s soshiticated? Anyway, I stand by that. There are legitimate jokes and the monster looks fantastic. Surprisingly, they never went back to the septic tank to make a second movie. It wouldn’t have been hard to squirt out a sequel, but Popko and West opted not to, I guess.

The bigger surprise is that I hadn’t pinched this one off before now. You would have thought this would have been a perfect loaf for the site. It’s a movie about a shit monster. My blog is pretty shitty. Why didn’t I squeeze this out before now? It’s almost as if my site was constipated with other crappy movies so I just needed to take the suppository and let this slide on through.

I don’t know if this is a movie I could truly recommend to just anyone. I think it is something that the right fan of the right B-movies would love. It takes wild swings with some of the comedy, but I would say it actually lands the jokes far more often than it doesn’t. It’s a movie that knows it is silly and can’t take itself too seriously, but it also treats its subject matter and effort to make the movie as a whole seriously. This isn’t just throwing a bunch of shit at the walls and sees what sticks. There was a vision of sorts of how this movie could work. I think it also helps that this is the story told by a little girl with an immature way of thinking. I dig it.

Okay, it’s time to shit and get off the pot on this week’s review. Next week is July 4th. That means it’s time for us here in the ol’ United States of ‘Murica to blow apart chunks of our country with fireworks and celebrate all that is American. So, to do that, let’s look at a movie that peels back the layers on our guys in blue. Yes, let’s celebrate America’s birthday by looking at the life of a cop. He’s not just any ol’ cop. He’s part of a group, a brotherhood if you will, of Honorable Men.

Until then, I’m gonna go take a big ol’ dump and create my own shit monster.