This is My Fascination, Vol. 5

Yesterday, we got the announcement of Conner O'Malley's feature directing debut, Rap World, coming soon to the Los Angeles Festival of Movies. It was an auspicious announcement given that I recently had a conversation with Lex Briscuso, a Brooklyn-based writer and film critic with a deep affinity for Conner's unusual and frequently off-putting work. So today seems like just the right day to share this chat, and revel a little bit in the magic and madness of Conner O'Malley.

Note: This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

How did Conner come into your life? What’s your origin story? 

I've tangentially had an awareness about Conner O'Malley because I really like I Think You Should Leave. and the sketch of him doing the “honk if you're horny” bit really just killed me the first time I saw it. But I really started being quote-unquote fascinated by him–because I really do feel like that sums it up for how I'm interacting with him right now, and absorbing what he does and what he makes–someone had tweeted his latest short, “The Mask.” And I was like, What is this?

So I clicked on it. It was like, Let's just see. And so I watched that, and I was just like, This is really intelligent. Not to say that Tim Robinson can't be intelligent, but I Think You Should Leave is almost a descendent of a Step Brothers, etc. So I was really struck by how it still maintains that sheer idiocy, but it really is trying to say something, whereas I don't necessarily feel that some of the other projects that he's taken part in–not necessarily his own work, but other things he's worked on aren't necessarily going for a real message. That's when I realized, Oh, he's really trying to tap into something. And then I went back and was like, Oh, shit, he's been going to Trump rallies for, like, 100 years and, doing all of this ridiculous comedy, and very much parodying in the political space.

So what is the message?

I feel like there's lots of messages. But there was something that I read in Reverse Shot–of all places to have an essay about Conner O'Malley; I love you Reverse Shot–“O’Malley’s comedy asks: in a world that’s unsustainable for all but the über-wealthy—where cartoons and commercials teach us to communicate, and actors from The Office also play Tom Clancy characters—can anything have real impact?” And I think that's a really great overarching way to look at his work as a whole, because I think when you pull apart his videos, you could almost say that each one has its own message, because each one is kind of interrogating a different thing about how we interact with culture, and how we have to interact with the world today. I think that's a really great overarching way to look at it. There’s a 17- or 18-minute compilation of Vines that he made over like a nine month period, I believe it was when he first moved to New York. And they get more and more absolutely batshit as the time goes on. 

It's not just stuff he's doing by himself. It's one thing to be batshit in your lonesome. It's another thing to involve other people in that behavior. And so for him to be using - I don't want to say the innocent public, but using the innocent public, so to speak, in this sort of exploration of a downfall–which is another thing that I love about what he does, and his own work, is this exploration of how people go down the rabbit hole–it's interesting to watch real people interact with him, and kind of clock that and see how we're keeping people at arm's length nowadays, I guess, and kind of tiptoeing around how do we interact with people. That's also a side effect of his work, something that he is trying to get out. Maybe not the main focus of stuff, but especially because he does a lot of comedy that has that soft COVID focus, How do we interact now? is a question that I feel like we're always trying to answer, because things have shifted so much since 2019. 

The term that came to me when I was looking at this stuff was Lynchian horror. Is that fair?

When I think of Conner, and I think of Lynchian horror, and I really put those two concepts in front of my eyeballs and try to match them, what I think of is that iconic moment in Mulholland Drive, when the witchy lady comes out of the back corner, or whatever. That’s the vibe of a Conner O'Malley YouTube piece. It's very much the anticipation of, Is there going to be a monster here? And it's like, Yeah, there is. Do not mess. I'm making sure to come at you with something. And I think what makes that impactful with him is, he doesn't necessarily look or seem like the type to go that way in his comedy, which is why I think I was so intrigued after watching "The Mask," being like, Oh, OK, this has kind of violent undertones. I'm a big horror girl. So as soon as someone flashes a bit of horror undertones to me, I'm sold. So it was very easy to get me in on that.

Another person that you've covered, actually, in this column, Nick Lutsko—he was on my radio show a few years ago, and he's awesome. He's such a sweetheart. And he's so incredible at what he does. I think he, like Conner, as well, has his finger on the pulse, especially in the political space. And it's cool to see how someone like Conner approaches that kind of content—I hate that word, content, but you know what I mean—that interrogation, and how someone like Nick interrogates it as well because it's like two totally different ways of going about it. They're in the same space, but they're doing their thing in their own way, which is really cool. There's a lot of political comedy nowadays, but those are two people that are doing it so well. And it's cool that they're doing it so differently but yet attacking the same concepts.

But to circle back, Lynchian horror, yes, I definitely agree. And what's really interesting about Conner, especially talking about horror, is that he's been in like three movies, two of which are technically horror films. But he's the unassuming dude in both. You’ve seen Bodies Bodies Bodies. He's the guy at the end. And then I recently saw I Saw the TV Glow, and he's Justice Smith's character’s boss at his job, and he has one really hilarious scene. He barely has a line in it. It's really a physical comedy scene. And it's quite short. So it's kind of funny to me, because I think he's so tapped into where comedy and horror meet that I think it's kind of funny that in the mainstream, he's not really been exercised in that way.

A goal of mine in the future is, I'm starting a minor producorial career, so to speak–I have a feature that I'm working on producing with some friends of mine who did a web series. And so I've been thinking about other people that I might want to work with should this become a viable option for me to continue to do, if this goes well. And Conner is someone that totally came to my mind. Obviously I'm small pickings, but that would be so incredible to work with him on developing and producing something in the horror sphere. I just think he's so smart about it. I appreciate the way he uses gore, I think it's very tapped into the horror space, but it's also so hyper realistic. Even though it feels so far from reality, it also feels so tapped into reality. The way he uses that stuff–he really knows how to make his face so frickin scary. Which is, I think, quite Lynchian as well, the way he plays with his own visage is quite freaky. I think stuff like that is scary.

 Do you see this as, like, filmmaking? And what is it comparable to as filmmaking?

I feel like it is filmmaking. It's sort of funny, because when I watched “The Mask” that was something that came into my brain especially, because when the credits rolled, I was like, Oh, there's credits, because obviously. You don't necessarily expect that. Most people who are operating on their own channel, I feel like, are operating from a place of reality. There's more of that than there is of filmmaking on YouTube just because there are other platforms where people can protect their artwork more. But I definitely was like, Oh, shit, OK, I'm thinking about this in a different way. If you take “The Mask” for example, the people that are involved in that, like Colin Mochrie, for example. I was like, Oh, shit did he really just come for Colin Mochrie? It's like, No, Colin Mochrie's in the frickin credits. The Safdie brothers are in the credits–not that those people need to be involved for something to be filmmaking, but it sort of put into perspective the work going on behind the scenes in order to make these pieces a reality. And I feel like, in the past, it hasn't necessarily been at the forefront. There aren't credits at the end of every bit. I think of the Howard Schultz tapes, which is also kind of a short film. There's no credits at the end of that. That would ruin the gag. But this is supposed to be set up like a doc. So I absolutely look at this kind of stuff as filmmaking. Especially when you look at “The Mask,” I feel like there's a real attention to detail paid as far as like, the structure of documentary, and how documentaries function, and how documentaries court sympathy, how they activate audiences.

I think a lot of Conner’s preoccupations are dramatic in nature. The idea of channeling a downfall, how someone falls from grace, whether that be linear or backward–I like that he's explored it in a couple of different ways. I feel like those sorts of tropes that he likes to latch onto are dramatic problems in and of themselves. So the work to me naturally comes from a place of dramatism. I feel like it's hard to not call it filmmaking. Even something like the Vine Compilation–which obviously is put together on YouTube, so you're watching it in 17 full minutes–even something like that could be experimental filmmaking. Not saying every single thing that was put on Vine is filmmaking. But especially when you look at the finished product, which I believe he did, and said, I'm gonna, in real time, chronicle a downfall. Who's to say that that's not a film? To say his work isn’t filmmaking would be like to say that the things that you or I make in our own time that we'd like to think is filmmaking isn't filmmaking, you know? It would be like me saying that my dumb little tribute to Martin Scorsese’s Italianamerican that I'm making with my own parents because we're Italian Americans is not filmmaking, you know what I mean? 

Not like I have a longstanding background or anything, but working as a critic for a few years now, I feel like, at times, we are too precious. Overall, this is not what I would be precious about, just because I feel like the intent is there. And you can see it. You can see the wheels turning. And I think if you're tapped into how comedy can can tap into what's going on in the zeitgeist and in culture at the moment, which I think most of us are tapped into to some degree, it applies to a lot of things. If you're tapped into that, it's hard not to see the intent there. And I think that's what sets it apart from your average dude making ridiculous Vines. What sets Conner apart from the people he parodies and the concepts he parodies, if that makes sense. There’s sort of this brain-dead quality about the realities that he's inhabiting. So that's sort of what sets him apart–there's certainly some intent behind the absolute ridiculousness. Am I saying that “Hell yeah, pimps” is profound? No. But it's good. 

The Vine compilation is the second one that really got me interested in his work, just because that one is so ripe with concepts, and with real bleak shit if you think about it, and you break it apart–bleak shit about mental health, bleak shit about the real world that we live in every single day, bleak shit about interpersonal connections and how we foster and how we flounder, especially in the post-COVID world. So I just feel like there's too much there to say it's not filmmaking.

Are you a Joe Pera person? 

I don't have much experience with Joe Pera. 

So what what Joe tapped into in his work with Conner is the sort of sweetness and gentleness behind the rage. On Joe Pera Talks With You, Conner plays a normal family man who has Conner-esque tendencies. He is capable of great tenderness, for lack of a better way to put it. How do you see that interacting with the horror stuff?

It's this great juxtaposition. When you think about something like that in the context of horror, it's this great disarming technique. But when you put it in that genre, it's very untrustworthy, which I think he's so good at–letting that sort of dread permeate. When he uses that in stuff that's more brutal, or more horror-esque, or more just fucking out there, and not even trying to be anywhere near nice–I think about the ending bits of Howard Schultz, when he's interacting with other mall goers. It's still absurd, because he's telling them, like, I was totally crazy and weird, but then Howard Schultz kidnapped me and made me normal. I'm all good now. If you take those words out of his mouth and put other words in his mouth in that situation, it would feel normal. It's only not normal because the whole is not normal. The whole container is not normal, so the contents can't be normal either. So I think there's just this great underlying dread that comes along when he taps into that ability to be tender, and be kind and be quote-unquote normal, because it doesn't come too often in his own work. And I feel like it encapsulates this spectrum from him that makes the work so great and interesting. But there's also a spectrum within the spectrum, which is quite cool. 

Even talking about it this way, it makes me think of that chart that's like, lawful good, neutral evil, chaotic evil, whatever -

Dungeons & Dragons alignments.

Right, that's what it is. When I think of that, I think of all of these moments that can be put on there. And there are ones that are very pure of heart, that are not trying in any way to tap into the crazy that he's able to produce. And then there are other ones that have sort of this unhinged edge. And it almost feels like someone that stops you on the corner, and you're like, Oh, my God. The other week, I was out with a friend and this woman came up to talk to us, and we ended up talking to her for 15 minutes, because what do you do? You're always kind of on edge because you just don't know what the interaction is going to be like. And there's this sense of welcoming and wanting to interact, that feels very positive. But then underneath it, there’s something percolating here. And that is, I think, the bit that he really does well, when he takes it to the more horror sphere.

I'm very picky about horror-comedy films. I don't love them all. It's a very delicate balance. And I feel like we're really lucky in the last maybe 10 years to have folks who are really tuned in to how to use both of those genres in a way that's wise, that's new, that's not discounting either side, really giving equal opportunity to both sides. And really understanding what makes horror work. So it's nice to see that we've gotten this great renaissance of comics who really know how to play both sides of the coin in a way that feels effective, and feels scary. I'm not worried if they can make me laugh. That’s how I feel about Conner: I already know I'm gonna laugh at some bullshit that comes out of his mouth in one of these videos, but am I going to be scared? That's what I'm hoping when I go into the videos. 

You can find Lex's criticism at Vulture, TheWrap, Little White Lies, i-D, The Playlist, SlashFilm, IGN, Mashable, Inverse, Film School Rejects, Paste, The Guardian, Fangoria, Roger Ebert, and more. Lex is a proud member of GALECA. She published her first chapbook of poems, Men I Invented During A Fever Dream, with Bullshit Lit in December 2023 under her given name (Alexis). Lex is also currently in pre-production on her first feature as a producer. Follow her on socials @nikonamerica if you’re still doing that whole thing.