Meet Hectic Knife ( Peter Litvin ). He is the lone force of good in his crime ridden city, where he doles out justice using his two knives and a frantic style. Unfortunately, as of late, he has lost his passion for the work, is feeling fatigued and is giving a lackluster performance on the job. To make matters worse, he has fallen behind in his bills and is forced to take a strange,(even for this films reality), roommate named Link( John Munnelly ). He only has only his two “best” friends to confide in, Harry( Richard Kohn ), a seemingly retired vigilante like himself, and Rockin Ray(... Rockin Ray ),a spirited but ineffective undercover cop. They both do their best to get his head back in the game, but nothing seems to work. Hectic's performance continues to decline, until after one particularly uninspired battle with some thugs, who were engaged in some committed but repetitive discussion on “orange pills” (or maybe orange peels?), he finds on their person a card referring to Piggly Doctor( J.J. Brine ), a evil “baddie” intent on getting the world addicted to “the drugs”. This starts Hectic down a path that will change everything. A fateful journey which includes reuniting with, then morning, estranged family members, on the fly heart transplants, as well as limb regeneration, toxic relationships and lots of unneeded exposition.

The film is filled with silly black humor that purposely falls flat. The bulk of conversations are characters describing what is going on as your watching it and long dead, running gags. It's a mix of what you may call “ tromaesque ” and the more currently used irreverent, comedy styles. I can't always hang with some of the internet kids “random” humor, but this steers away from hitting this nerve with a more grimy feel and more classical comedy influences. Lines are dry or misfired and characters under played, but it's perfectly difficult to pick out when it's by design or not. It's probably a fun mix of both. Scenes go on past their purpose, into faux candid moments, where the participants seem to leave character and riff off of each other (mostly unsuccessfully). Sometimes you get the feeling certain gags might be inside jokes, and maybe you are being left out, but thats all part of its style. It's a parody of “hero” flicks but for a post dark night world, in which even Superman is a brooding killer who doesn't know if he's on the right path. Think Sin City in the key of Nacho Libre (2006) with a hint of something like Tom Goes to the Mayor (2004-2006). Where The Toxic Avenger (1984) lampooned the valiant heroes and corny one liners of the Stan Lee (appropriated) era with trash cinema sensibilities, Hectic Knife plays off the disjointed series of emotional moments that make up our current pseudo-poetic Hollywood vigilantes. The story is a self referring, bare bones, allusion to the cliche dark hero drama. Our evil villain forces people to become addicted to “the drug”, the antagonist suffers death and betrayal; it covers all the genre basics, telegraphing every event with cliff notes, just in case you didn't get it. It doesn't have a fourth wall, like..at all. It’s completely self aware. There is less plot then there are references to the lack of plot. It's that kind of flick, and it doesn't pull any punches when it comes to the authenticity of its “mistakes” for comedic effect.

The film wears it's low budget as a fashion statement. A black and white filter (almost) throughout, not only serves to give it that Frank Miller feel but is also intentionally an obvious mask for the restraints in resources. Stylized frugal techniques include lots of chocolate syrup blood, which is always fun, and the redressing of sets. There is plenty of goofy gore, bad wigs, and the special effects are the tops when it comes to regaining a limb. The props probably got the most laughs out of me, rubber knives litter the floors, and our hero comes home to a stack of blank envelopes with “Bills” written on them. A Lot of the camera work is exaggerated, plays with position, and at moments has some very inspired cuts. Sometimes the angles blend with the washed out monochrome to remind me of 90s art film. There is no nudity, but there is something extremely attractive about the bad guys sidekick, Porch (played by Traci Ann Wolfe and I'm pretty sure it's the eyepatch). Despite it's willfully unsound style, each scene has a lot of love in every aspect of production and plenty of fun details to pick out of the awkward mess.