The Dark Backward

The Dark Backward, a sophomoric study in weird-for-weird's-sake is all stylized urban squalor and deadpan comic despair. It numbers among its denizens one necrophiliac garbageman, three obscenely fat women in silky lingerie, and five midgets who make up a human xylophone act, but the main misfit is one Marty Malt (Judd Nelson), a no-talent stand-up comedian who has suddenly sprouted a third arm from his back. Somewhere here, an ironic show-biz parable is trying to take shape. But director Adam Rifkin generally ignores it, preferring to flaunt the chops he has borrowed from David Lynch and John Waters.