There was a time not too long ago, before the words selfie and Kardashian were household, when Neil Hamburger, the alter-ego stand-up persona of Gregg Turkington, was even sadder than the rest of America, though we seem to have caught up. Through excruciatingly terrible jokes, he coldly points out that much of our pop culture exists merely because of how depressed and horny we are, vomiting forth the unbearable heaviness of our being. When the audience turns on his flailing, coughing, anti-comedy Pupkin-ness, Hamburger tries to manipulate mercy from them, claiming to have cancer. He isn’t feeling well, and how exactly are you and I and our chaturbating buddies?

Hamburger’s horribleness has hatched a movie which is currently at Sundance. From Matt Patches at Grantland:

In hell’s dingy comedy club, Neil Hamburger takes the stage each night, forcing audiences to confront the life they once lived. Still there are laughs — after all, this is a crowd that wound up in hell. A sample of his devilish comedy:

What’s the difference between Courtney Love and the American flag?

It would be wrong to urinate on the American flag.

For the living willing to challenge themselves, comedian Gregg Turkington tours the country as his tuxedoed alter ego Hamburger, delivering one-liners with nasally sadness. Audiences shell out to see Hamburger nose-dive with sets that would make Rupert Pupkin bite his lip. Though Turkington’s found success in his own shoes, acting in film and television, writing, and working with musicians, his weaponized jokester is the star.1 Neil Hamburger commands attention and remains an ever-changing creature, 20 years spent warping American pop culture with a fun-house mirror.

In the age of adaptation, any recognizable face is a movie waiting to happen. Borat got a movie. MacGruber got a movie. The Lego “minifig” got a movie. Fred Figglehorn got three nightmare-fuel movies (ask your kids). Saturday Night Live was in the character exploitation business before it was cool, churning out movies like It’s Pat, Coneheads, Stuart Saves His Family, and Wayne’s World. Despite a shtick that sends sensitive souls directly to therapy, Neil Hamburger’s day in the cinematic sun was inevitable. And now it’s here: Entertainment, a 2015 Sundance Film Festival premiere that extrapolates Turkington’s ongoing work into a bleak vessel of human failure. That Neil Hamburger show from hell? We’re already living it.•