Anticipation.
This sounds utterly bonkers, even for a director known for his utter bonkers-ness.
Enjoyment.
Incongruous, mad and gross, but never dull.
In Retrospect.
Certain to put you off cigarettes, so there’s that…
Notably fond of deadpan dada and off-the-wall gore, director Quentin Dupieux (Rubber, Deerskin) delivers these by the bucketload in loony Super Sentai pisstake, Smoking Causes Coughing.
Tobacco Force are a group of vigilantes who fight monsters by giving them cancer, and discourage the youth from smoking. They’re sent on a retreat to improve group cohesion by their boss Chief Didier, a talking rat puppet who drools green ooze but is somehow a sex god, irresistible to human females.
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On their getaway, Tobacco Force take turns telling scary stories. These vignettes make up the bulk of the film – one about a woman whose nephew gets stuck in a woodchipper is particularly funny and gruesome. Fairly disconnected and chaotic, though fun, these Treehouse of Horror stories seem like bits from the cutting room floor stitched together into a weird patchwork, for which the Tobacco Force are the amusingly underdeveloped vehicle. But the film, totally dégagé about its own ludicrous lameness, really doesn’t give a fuck.
Just as they’re getting into the swing of it, Lézardin, Emperor of Evil (Benoît Poelvoorde), decides to annihilate planet Earth – naturally, the gang freak out and chainsmoke. With echoes of Ninja Turtles, Thunderbirds and Star Trek, Dupieux regurgitates his influences, covered in slime and with gleefully filthy, absurdist Eurotrash humour.
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