“I concur, Dr. Hellfire. eBay is sweet.”

One of the emerging short-term results of digital video technology is a punk, DIY aesthetic that populates small indie films – particularly small indie comedies. What was once an expensive proposition involving specialized technology and education has become something that a regular consumer can now pull off with only a few hundred dollars of investment and fifteen minutes to learn the equipment. It also leads to a world where content is rarely an issue. At a time when every National Lampoon wannabe (and even the most recent National Lampoon movies, themselves) contains at least one erupting toilet or uncontrollable diarrhea gag, mainstream comedy still censors its content to remain marketable. When you shot on a budget of under $1000, however, it’s not really that much of an issue.

If it were an issue, then Duck! The Carbine High Massacre would probably have never been made in the first place. With a nation that still grows skittish at the word “Columbine,” pitching a comedy about a duo of high school outsiders who wander into the cafeteria and start blowing people away is not a task I would wish on anybody. In fact, whether positive or negative, the vast majority of comments you’ll find on Duck! are more concerned with the subject matter than with the execution of the film. As far as the content goes, the filmmakers include a title card that states that they went ahead with the film because the events were bound to become a movie, anyway – and possibly even a TV film, at that. In terms of the execution, for those of you who are wondering, the movie is bad – and it doesn’t really seem to care about it.

“One of us. One of us. One of us.”

Derwin and Derick are two kids who are difficult to like. They listen to thrash metal while ordering illegal weapons over the internet and wearing their German helmets in their spacious rooms. Derick spends his days at school reading Mein Kampf, while Derwin takes the time out of his busy schedule to explain his atheism to the local religious fundamentalist. While they are intelligent and creative, their harshness and general mean-spiritidness means that Derwin and Derick are not the sort of people you would feel compelled to hang out with. However, when compared to the people surrounding them, they become much more sympathetic. You could term it the Johnny the Homicidal Maniac syndrome. When everybody else around you is even more deranged, the psychopaths start looking like good company.

The social circle that keeps Derwin and Derick eternally playing monkey-in-the-middle consists of your typical high school stereotypes. There’s the duo of jocks who can get away with anything as long as they tell the Principal they’re practicing for the big game. There’s the guitar girl who knows just enough chords to be dangerous and feels that her simplistic lyrics will be the answer to violence and hatred in the world. There’s the car-obsessed greaser. And there’s even Bible Girl, whose religion is only skin deep as she cares more aobut getting people to her youth group meetings than about helping those in need. Bible Girl, by the way, is played by softcore starlet Misty Mundae.

If your response is, “I sat behind this girl in school,” then I’m deeply sorry.

If you’ve read any of our reviews of Misty Mundae films before, then you know that she’s nothing if not consistent. She consistently makes you think, “She’s a better actress than this.” And Duck! is no exception. Mundae is a standout with her sense of comic timing in a movie that really doesn’t know when to spring a punchline and when to cut a gag loose. At least this time around, her main role gets to remain clothed.

She’s joined in the “needs a better gig” category of actor by William Hellfire – who, as the co-writer and co-director of Duck! – deserves some blame for getting himself into this mess. Of the actors present in Duck!, Hellfire and Mundae seem to be the only ones who are really, well, present. The others stumble through on the level of mediocre high school theatre while Mundae’s sense of humor carries an otherwise unenjoyable character and Hellfire lends genuine drama to a character who could just as easily have been a faceless villain or a dimensionless hero.

Is Duck! The Carbine High Massacre unflinching? Yes. But it is also filled with unnecessary and repellant jokes that would have been better left on the cutting room floor – none of which have anything to do with its controversial subject matter. Is it an accurate satire of high school social interaction? It certainly (sadly) suggests the environment I went to high school in. But while it’s willing to lend its black-trenchcoated protagonists a level of humanity, it rejoices in running down its antagonists and stripping them of the same humanity. And, unfortunately, the humanity of its protagonists tends to come in bloated monologues that could have been leaner and more effective if the writer/directors had been willing to trim some unneeded and repetitive lines. The result is a movie that approaches but never quite reaches watchability. However, it reminds me of the early videos that M. Night Shyamalan likes to share in his special features on his newer movies. It’s a freshman effort that is inherently flawed and difficult to swallow – but for all its flaws, it suggests talents that with the proper seasoning and more experience may represent the new face of Hollywood.

Dude. Other people need to use that mic. Back up a step.