Quasi Parent Guide

The hunchback Quasi (Steve Lemme) may have spent his childhood living in a bell tower, but he now makes a meagre living as a torturer working in King Guy’s (Jay Chandrasekhar) dungeons. He gained a small measure of fame by inventing the rack, but otherwise leads a lonely life punctuated by drinking sessions in the tavern with his fellow torturer and hut-mate, Duchamp (Kevin Heffernan).

A papal visit is in the offing and Duchamp buys numerous lottery tickets which offer the chance of a private confessional visit with His Holiness, Pope Cornelius (Paul Soter). Duchamp insists on giving one of the tickets to Quasi, who unexpectedly wins. Now he finds himself inadvertently embroiled in the plots of two powerful, murderous men and on the radar of the clever and beautiful Queen Catherine (Adrianne Palicki), who faces dangers of her own. As Quasi navigates the intrigue around him, he uncovers startling facts that will change his life and forever alter the kingdom of France. If Quasi’s to survive and thrive, he will need courage, intelligence, and loyalty – and more than his fair share of luck.

I’m not going to pull any punches here: it’s possible that Quasi is one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. It’s crude, juvenile, and burdened with terrible jokes and sight gags. The sets look cheap and the script feels recycled. There is nothing to get excited about in this medieval muckfest.

There is, however, plenty for parents and teachers to be concerned with in Quasi. The movie uses torture as a plot element, treating it as comic material. I don’t know about you, but I find torture horrifying and watching people have their feet burned with hot pokers or get stretched on a rack doesn’t make me laugh – not even when it’s accompanied by “witty” banter. There is also a scene where a man’s scrotum is nailed to a stump and his testicles are front and center on screen.

If the production’s violence isn’t appalling enough, there’s a cartload of crude sexual content in this flick. Aside from verbal innuendo, there are several manuscript pages that illustrate graphic sexual activities, some of which include violence. In one picture, a manacled man is hung upside down while a cat is inserted into his rectum (yes, you read that correctly). Other scenes show a man having sex with a woman and with an animal. (The script manages to add racism here by pointing out that the man is having sex with a Saracen woman – a Muslim – which is supposed to be an aggravating factor.) These bits of medieval porn clearly show both breasts and genitals. And, because this script can’t ever stray too far from violence, the movie also features a scene of adulterous sex taking place upon the rack – which is supposed to be titillating.

This imbecilic and nauseating film is so awful I can’t imagine who would be willing to watch it. It feels like it was written and produced by a group of drunk frat boys and maybe that’s the intended audience – intoxicated teens. Obviously, they don’t need the toxic messages that spew forth from the screen and neither does anyone else.