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Flying Lotus Responds to Reports of Walkouts During His Film ‘Kuso’

One reviewer called it “the grossest movie ever made.”
Photo by Tim Saccenti

Brainfeeder boss Flying Lotus's new feature film Kuso apparently isn't for everybody. In their review of the movie, The Verge reported a "consistent stream" of walkouts occurred during a screening this past weekend at Sundance Film Festival.

"Watching fellow moviegoers leave one by one was like witnessing a real-time trigger-warning test," reported writer Chris Plante, who deemed Kuso "the grossest movie ever made." Describing some of the film's more shocking scenes—including a woman chewing on concrete and penis-stabbing, among others—he added: "The walk-outs continued in a consistent stream up to the final scene." Kuso, which features actors Hannibal Burress, Workaholics' Anders Holm, Tim Heidecker, and music icon George Clinton, is about a series of events following a devastating earthquake in LA. It is Flying Lotus' directorial debut, and it is the first feature film from his new production company, Brainfeeder Films.

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Media outlets quickly picked up the story, prompting Flying Lotus to respond via Twitter. "It was only like 20 people out of like 400 who walked out," he wrote. "Wasn't as dramatic as they make it out to be. I tried to warn folks." When asked if the film was really as gross as reviewers claimed, he replied, "I don't think it's that crazy tbh. It's just a tame climate these days, in film."

Plante also hit Twitter to clarify his review, stating that said walkout occurred during an industry and press screening, and not during its official premiere. He added: "They should have stuck around. Kuso's not perfect, but far more interesting [than] the umpteenth, generic coming-of-age film."

Kuso isn't the first time viewers have walked out at Sundance. The 2015 film The Forbidden Room, described by The Stanford Daily as having a "bizarre Russian Doll story structure, reportedly lost half of its crowd within the first hour of its world premiere. Last year's festival saw walkouts at the premieres of at least two films, Other People and the Daniel Radcliffe-starring Swiss Army Man, due to a sex scene and a farting corpse, respectively.

Watch the trailer for Kuso below. We've reached out to Flying Lotus for additional comment.