Sarah Squirm: Live + In The Flesh

Ms. Sherman’s body-horror aesthetic has been compared to filmmaker David Cronenberg’s, though gross-out comedy is hardly new. Ms. Sherman simply elevates the entire genre to new depths. .... But she may be a better reactive comedian than she is a performer alone on stage, left entirely to her own devices.

Sherman’s insight is that the essential overlap between body horror and gross-out humor is gratuitousness. Every moment is too much. The sexuality, the violence, the imagery, the tastelessness. Even her more ordinary jokes go on and on, long enough that that becomes the joke. It all works because she’s a Tasmanian devil of a performer whose momentum leads toward nonsense.

As long as you know what you’re getting yourself into, STREAM IT to see what Sherman is like outside of the constraints of NBC and 30 Rock. Just note it might not be a great idea to eat or think about eating while watching this!