Descend Into Madness as You Watch the Psychedelic, NSFW Trailer for ‘Kuso’
Musician Steven Ellison first came to prominence under the moniker Flying Lotus, anointed as the toast of the hip-kid music blogs for his mind-expanding fusion of glitchy electronica and free jazz. He assumed the alias of Captain Murphy in 2012, pivoting from composing into rapping with the instant cult smash mixtape Du∆lity, a dense stew of stoner wordplay and snippets of audio from forgotten B-movies. His encyclopedic knowledge of bizarro cinema has evidently informed his newest career move — the poster for Ellison’s debut feature film Kuso simply reads “A film by Steve,” but the polymath’s latest project looks like anything but a return to basics. It’ll debut at the Sundance Film Festival in the days to come, and with a brief trailer now running online at Deadline, us folks at home can get a taste of the acid tab Ellison’s about to drop on Park City.
The first look at Kuso offers a window into the singular (and singularly strange) mind of Steve Ellison, where shaggy alien invaders rub elbows with distortion-faced freaks of nature. The film begins in a Los Angeles devastated by the worst earthquake on record, where a network of busted-up televisions offers free travel between surreal dimensions. As for any plot description beyond that, your guess is as good as mine, because the trailer certainly isn’t doing us any favors. The clip above doesn’t give much of an impression of what this is about, exactly, instead assaulting its audience with uncanny images: a face popping off a head to reveal a brain, a fleshly slug slithering into some kind of orifice, an awkward conversation with a sex doll.
The real draw is in the names. Ellison’s gathered an eclectic cast, with alt-comedian Hannibal Buress, Workaholics alum Anders Holm, living funk god George Clinton, and Tim Heidecker of Tim and Eric notoriety sharing billing with a group of relative unknowns. No less tempting is the lineup for the soundtrack; Ellison clearly went deep into his rolodex for this, promising new music as Flying Lotus and Captain Murphy in addition to cuts from evil genius Aphex Twin, bass virtuoso Thundercat, and jazz pioneer Kamasi Washington.
In the parlance of The Simpsons’ Barney Gumble, “JUST HOOK IT TO MY VEINS.”