Cinephiles and party-goers were invited to Star Cinema Grill on April 24 to encounter a very interesting new film. The movie, “Super Dicks” premiered to members of the College Station community, aiming to foster a blend of the theatrical and party experience for guests.
It was one of the film’s first showings, with the filmmakers planning on moving it across the country for more audiences to see.
The film is about a doctor who performs “penis enlargement procedures” and a community who reckons with the effects of his services. Two detectives try the procedure and suffer the effects of it, two women use the operation to summon the “dick devil” and a businessman sells magic lettuce to help aid the pain of the procedure while many of the consumers begin to feel the effects of the hallucinogen in the process.
“Super Dicks” director Damian Lee said that College Station was the perfect place to show this film, hoping for audiences to connect with its overall message.
“We wanted to show [“Super Dicks”] to a college crowd and see what their reaction was and see if it was the right demographic, just to assess it that way,” Lee said.
Lee began his career as a professional athlete and in sports shows before moving on to filmmaking. He has produced several films and has worked with movie stars in the process, notably Jim Carrey, who starred in his first movie.
“We worked with a great editor, Bill Steinkamp, who has been nominated for Oscars for his work on films like ‘Tootsie,’ ‘A Time to Kill’ and ‘Out of Africa,’” Lee said. “I’ve worked a lot with him the last 15 years, so he’s very insightful to me.”
The film’s producer, Juliet Wang, said the film commemorates a specific era of filmmaking and pays tribute to movies that they loved watching growing up.
“It’s very out there and raunchy, but still represents the early 2000s comedy where jokes have no boundary and everyone is offended equally,” Juliet said. “No one is left out of our jokes.”
That raunchiness was expressed far before the movie started. The screening featured a pre-show party consisting of themed drinks such as “Dr. Ab-Dool’s Manhood Emporium Margarita,” “World Peace Whiskey and Coke” and “Punch Below the Belt,” echoing a few important themes and figures in the film.
There was also a DJ set, courtesy of DJ Chrispy, along with games and giveaways throughout the party as well. Juliet said this was a necessary part of the experience and that they wouldn’t show it any other way.
“We made this movie during the peak of COVID, and we felt that people needed some laughs and refreshment of comedy films,” Juliet said.
While the film is too fresh for the filmmakers to know true audiences’ reactions, they hope that the characters are relatable enough for fans to connect with.
“What you want to do is work on character development,” Lee said. “You want to try to get as much character development as you can on this, and then pack as much madness as you can afford into this thing and keep the pacing. Comedy needs to be very quick.”
Even though Lee made the film with comedy in mind, its underlying message encouraging people to love one another is what he hopes sticks with audiences long after the credits roll.
“It harkens back to ‘Make love, not war,’ which is a ‘60s anthem and theme song,” Lee said. “This is an upgrade of that. It fundamentally has something that really works, and this is an entertaining version that may reach people today.”
