Sixteen Tongues is writer/director Scooter McCrae’s follow up to his 1997 indie/arthouse/sleaze/horror masterpiece Shatter Dead, a $2000 DV feature that kicked my ass eight-shades of black and blue. Unfortunately I can’t say quite as much for his sophomore outing. In fact, this review was originally going to be a pretty vicious panning, because I hated the film the first time I watched it. But, being the fair dude that I am, I gave it a second chance before committing this review for posterity. I still won’t say that it is a good film, but I am more willing to file it in the misfire category than the out and out suck category.

Jane Chase plays Virginia “Ginny” Chin, a bioengineered test-tube baby assassin genetically altered to have a clitoris under each eyelid, the theory being that if she comes every time she blinks, it will somewhat offset the compelling bloodlust also built into her nature, and keep her docile between assignments. Gone rogue now, she holds up with her girlfriend, Alik, a hacker trying to find the person who killed her serial killer brother, who offers to help Ginny find the doctor who created her…so she can kill him.

The motel they end up in, where the movie takes place, just so happened to also count Adrian Torque as a guest, a cop who was killed in a terrorist explosion, and resurrected with tongue meat from the sixteen people not quite as lucky patching him together. Hence the title.

The world that these characters live in is a dystopian future complete with domestic and foreign conflicts galore, and most pointedly a water embargo that forces the players to constantly swipe their credit cards to wash their faces or get some ice. They also have to swipe their credit cards to turn off their television sets, which otherwise play a constant loop of hardcore pornography (rampant, mandatory pornography being the government’s new control mechanism).

Does this all sound like a big mouthful to tear off for a low budget, digital video feature? Well, you’re right. It is. And no matter how earnest and resourceful our latter day Ed Wood/Nathan Schiff/Russ Meyer may be, he simply can’t pull it off. The fact that all three characters provide near constant narration proves my point. The story simply is too convoluted and confusing to speak for itself.

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