Cringe: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Enjoyment: ⭐⭐⭐
Three young women from a parallel universe play a blind date reality game that culminates in the euphoric Flashout. They get trapped on unfamiliar planet Earth by a reality repairman who must destroy their pleasure-filled game before the Multiverse is permanently altered.
Introduction#
Flashout is a 2019 English-language sci-fi film directed by Richard Lerner. It stars Lorynn York, Allison Dunbar, and Maya Stojan as three totally forgettable female leads. Jonathan Goldstein takes on the role of “Repairman”, some sort of inter-dimensional janitor, and is the only memorable character in the film.
This one caught my eye due to the poor poster art, along with the absurd sci-fi premise. A parallel universe dating game? Sounds like perfect b-movie cringe. Mix in the threat of the multiverse permanently being messed up, and we might have a winner. According to IMDB, the film has been recut as Intermate, however I’m pretty sure I watched to original cut. In any case, the version I watched is 90 minutes.
Plot#
Our story begins with a monologue from what we will come to know as the Repairman character. This sets the stage for the rest of the film, informing us that this film is definitely going to be about the multiverse. It gives you time to prepare for some of the absurdity that is to come, I suppose, and includes some fancy CGI. While I have no idea the budget of this film, the special effects and green screen usage are much better than I expected.
After Repairman finishes complaining to the audience, we move towards an advertisement for the InterMate game, serving as more plot exposition. The gist of the game is that you are transported to a micro-universe along with several other players (real people), but there are also a bunch of
You might think that we’d finally be done with the exposition, but you’d be wrong. It goes on for several more minutes, interspersed with some poor character building. Finally, though, things start to move forward, and several characters decide to start a game of InterMate together. By this time, you start to notice that everyone in this far future or alternate dimensions dresses in modified athletic wear. I have to give the costume designer some credit here, the outfits look pretty good for what they are, and probably cost next to nothing to produce.
From this point on the plot picks up, and oh boy, it is a mess. I frankly had no idea what was going on most of the time during my initial watch, and had to go back in order to come up with this summary:
- The Repairman needs one of our heroines in order to pull off his plan. He is also actually a giant purple slug thing from another universe.
- Our characters are stuck in this alternate universe, which is basically the modern US SouthWest.
- The heroines end up working in an escort agency, for reasons that are never explained.
- Repairman hires one of our heroines from the agency and tries to kidnap her, but fails and gets put in hospital instead.
- Two of our heroines fall in love with Earth guys, and somehow manage to convince them they’re actually from a different universe.
- Repairman knocks one girl out and throws her in a closet, while a separate one agrees to help him with his plan.
You might think, from reading the above, that it’s not very convoluted or outlandish, but random stuff just happens in Flashout. There’s no reason for most of it, and it doesn’t really play into the main story. All of the characters, excepting Repairman, are totally forgettable and lack any sort of personality. But the randomness is what makes it so entertaining, you never know what’s going to happen next. The special effects are really enjoyable as well, you can tell whomever made them had fun with it.
Review#
Flashout is an entertaining mess of sci-fi b-movie. The plot is nonsensical, most of the characters flat, and it’s filled with stupid monologues from the Repairman. But it has heart, by virtue of being so random and having SFX that are much better than you’d expect from something like this. Watching this is an experience, and you can’t help but laugh out loud at times.
This trash earns four out of five cringe stars. It really feels like the director and crew wanted to make a cool sci-fi film, but the writing and story are just so bad. On the upside, the acting is okay overall, if a bit uninspired. In terms of entertainment, Flashout earns three out of five stars. It’s a fun watch, and while you might not know exactly what is going on or why, it doesn’t really matter in the end.
I would recommend this one to anyone who enjoys campy sci-fi, or wants a film to laugh at during a movie night with friends (ideally while at least slightly inebriated).