As a pricey RoboCop hits theatres, David Seger whips up a zero-budget remake with exploding prosthetic dicks
Amidst a shower of exploding members, RoboCop emerges as the fog clears, unscathed. It's only one of 55 scenes – part of a collaborative, crowd-sourced remake of 1987's RoboCop called Our RoboCop Remake – but this scene takes the cake as the most intense 3.5 minute grossout since Kathy Bates skinny dipping in About Schmidt. As José Padilha's 2014 revisit of RoboCop hits theatres with an estimated budget of $100 million, Our RoboCop Remake is a parodic response on a shoestring budget. Directors Jeffrey Max and Zach Johnson (aka Fatal Farm) orchestrate a visual assault of flying skin flutes in RoboCop's effort to prevent rape. "We let the filmmakers do whatever they wanted, and often times I wouldn't even know what their 'angle' was until I saw their finished scenes," explains director David Seger, the project's organiser. "My thinking was that if these guys are going to be doing this thing for no money, they should have complete creative freedom. This backfired a little bit, because we ended up with some animated scenes back-to-back, but that's no big deal."
“I watched it and I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I had to watch it twice, it was so impressive and shocking”
Speaking of backfire, don't watch this while eating lunch. "I knew (Fatal Farm) put a lot of energy into it and were shooting in a parking lot until like 4:00am," says Seger. "I only heard bits and pieces from some of the other actors who were there. I didn't even know about the prosthetic dicks." With all the prosthetic paroxysm, was Seger shocked? "I watched it and I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I had to watch it twice, it was so impressive and shocking. I remember thinking something like, 'Oh wow, I gotta make sure this whole movie is good to justify the effort they put into their scene'."
Together with 55 directors, David Seger Paris, I Love You'd this incredible remake into existence. While it may not get a wide cinematic release, it can be watched in full on his website. Does it live up to the original? "There's no living up to RoboCop. That's such a great movie, one of my absolute favorites." Whereas this parody investigates what RoboCop would be like if it were a schizophrenic potpourri of hilarity, Seger only set out to get it done: "We made it, it exists, mission accomplished."
