Adam Bernet and Rory Tregaskis return with another series of short films that unfortunately contain the same problems as those previously reviewed. The following shorts can all be seen on Bernet and Tregaskis’ website, with the exception of Extreme: Horrors of Ageing, which is only available on YouTube.
The first short, I Did Not Know That, is a mockumentary satirising trendy eating habits amongst millennials by stating patently unreal facts about eggs, such as their addictive, drug-like effects on the human body as well as their properties as a sexual aid. This mostly hits the mark in terms of satirising similar YouTube videos about food that are aimed at millennials and as a result does what it sets out to achieve.
The second short is more of a mock voice reel for Bernet, allowing him to display his admittedly-impressive range of accents, from New Yorker to Cockney to Northern to posh RP. However, whilst the accents are acceptable, the material just isn’t funny enough to make this an effective spoof, consisting mostly of limp spoofs of adverts that provide Bernet with little memorable dialogue to work with.
Extreme: Horrors of Ageing – Truth About Cosmetics is a spoof of cosmetic adverts that does little with its premise, instead simply relying on mechanical sound effects and creepy music to accompany footage of the application of beauty products and cosmetic surgery. There’s no attempt at commenting on the exaggerated claims made about beauty products nor on the pervasive nature and unintentional side-effects of cosmetic surgery. As a result, this short comes across as a missed opportunity for some scathing social commentary.
Finally, there is spoof music video Bounce House (Success Remix), which suffers from the same problems as Bernet Tregaskis’ spoof perfume adverts – whilst it successfully reproduces that high-end production values of the music videos it is supposedly parodying, there is no satirical commentary on the conventions of music videos, just footage of Bernet dancing to music. If Bernet Tregaskis perhaps don’t intend for this music video to be overtly comedic but instead mimic actual music videos, then adding some lyrics would help to sell the illusion.
Overall, this collection of shorts suffers from the same problems as the first batch reviewed – specifically, a lack of ample comedic material based on the individual subject matter for each video. This results in many of Bernet Tregaskis’ videos coming across as missed comedic opportunities.