The Corndog Man

Independent films, for quite some time, have been seen as an alternative film genre that tells off kilter and taboo stories you don't normally see in wide release movies. Unfortunately, indie films have also earned a bad reputation for being vapid art that is offensive for offensiveness' sake, and it's on this side of the genre hemisphere we find The Corndog Man.

The Corndog Man is a ten- to fifteen-minute short film that contains an hour of filler. A mysterious caller, Corndog Man, starts trolling a racist boat salesman named Ace Barker. Corndog, who never gives his name, calls posing as a prospective customer, but soon begins to incessantly call Ace and tell him facts that let Ace know Corndog is watching him.

Despite how atrocious this movie is, I did enjoy the first couple of conversations where Corndog poses as a “serious fisherman” calling Ace to inquire about a boat. Initially, it feels like some sort of Jerky Boys skit, with both actors putting on their thickest southern accents, and progressively annoying each other with every passing minute.

The phone head games continue for fifty minutes of this film. Corndog continues to hound Ace, reminding him of evil deeds long forgotten, and it's learned that Corndog is out for revenge. He also tells Ace he knows his secret of being a closeted homosexual who has sex with black transsexuals (...Yeah). Resurfaced memories and revealed secrets, along with Corndog's non-stop calling, eventually lead to Ace having a mental breakdown in a very anti-climactic ending. There were very brief flashback scenes of Ace but it didn’t expand much. This big twist of the movie is buried beneath too much of the phone call b.s, and Ace's character is so unsympathetic that its not a surprise he was a piece of crap as a young man.

Ace spends the movie answering telephones; or rather, trying to avoid answering them which makes this movie ear gratingly annoying; it's like being in a call center with no operators. There are multiple scenes where phones ring for a minute or two straight without any other dialogue. That phone should’ve won best supporting actor because it was more convincing than anyone person in the film. Ace spends the rest of the flick spitting out racial epithets and threatening Corndog with violence.

The real issue with this movie is the smut shots thrown in just because. But its also the kind of random smut that doesn’t add any layers or elements to the movie. Stuff like a peep hole into restroom and Ace receiving a blowjob from his transsexual girlfriend and dead time. Although the phone calls go on throughout the film, it's nonstop with no other action for about forty to fifty minutes (I felt like I could hear the phone ringing once the movie ended). This whole series of calls could've been portrayed in five to ten minutes by using captions saying a day or week has gone by since the last phone conversation. So much of the dialogue is unnecessary to the plot that it feels like they were improvising and had nothing to say.

I'm actually really disappointed by this film, I had low expectations going into it and even those expectations weren't met. Still, beneath all the gutter rhetoric and racial slurs, there's a decent revenge story screaming to break free, but unfortunately, those screams are drowned out by the incessant ringing of a LAN line phone. This is a movie is as palatable as stale corndogs.

2/10

Why is it called Corndog Man?

His license plate says Corndog and everyone says corn dogs in this movie.

...Yeah.