The Apocalytes and the Tetragons: Psychic Blasts and Undulating Bodies
The Vortex,
March 10
Running Time: 1 hr, 30 min
Pop quiz: Which of the following sounds sexiest to you? A) “Come and receive the euphoric download from my daughter’s mouth.” B) “Obsessed with torture devices, Onyx erects macabre architecture.” C) Metaspyders emanating from an epiqueen’s vagina.
All appear in the silent (but heavily subtitled) films The Apocalytes and The Tetragons, directed and conceived by Chad Salvata (creator of the cybernetic opera series The X&Y Trilogy) and Sergio R. Samayoa. With the hyper-stylized, absurdist, nudity-rich videos looming behind them, Salvata, Samayoa, and Matt Patterson, all of the Electronic Planet Ensemble, churned out loud, rockin’ electronica to accompany the action. The plot plays out rather like any B-movie’s, with an abundance of clunky sci-fi lingo. Someone with a short attention span might describe the basic story like this: Four women are brought to a genetic lab, and a metallic chip is inserted in each of their uteri, at which point they enter the transformation chamber, where they acquire catsuits and eye make-up (and perverse superheroine identities). Then bloodshed ensues and stuff blows up, but there’s a big cube left swirling in space. The son of the lab’s founder Xuthus shows up with his girlfriend and something explodes and then a foray is made into the realm of hypertext … lots of psychic blast destruction. Plenty of undulating bodies and post-production laser overlays. The result (for better or worse) is something like what you get playing that game “exquisite corpse” (the one where you take turns drawing parts of a picture you can’t see the rest of). It would be too easy to quote the Tetragons line: “Your vulgar designs shall perish in the vortex of righteousness” by way of a conclusion. It’s well-scored soft-core sci-fi cyber-porn, heavy on the energy fielding (and hyphens).
This article appears in March 17 • 2000.