“Think the Hollywood satire has been done to death? Think again. Playwright Matt Pelfrey sets the format's tired tropes of murderous Tinseltown greed among the most desperately delusional of wannabe edgy filmmakers and snarks them up with ever more outrageous sex, gore, movie jokes and violence. Only the second full-length play (and world premiere) staged by Killing My Lobster, "Shock" pulls off the rare feat of becoming funnier and more acute the more over-the-top it goes.”
-- Robert Hurwitt, San Francisco Chronicle Theater Critic
* Starred Review: “Matt Pelfrey's Pure Shock Value brilliantly updates the scathingly bleak Hollywood satire for a post-Tarantino generation of Silver Lake slackers.”
-- Rob Avila, SF Bay Guardian
"You'll laugh, you'll feel terrible for laughing, and you'll laugh some more watching this Grand Guignol send-up of those trying to make it in Tinseltown."
-- Matt Sussman, SF Flavorpill
"Astonishingly witty dialogue and riotous situations."
-- Kevin Langson, EDGE SF
“Pure Shock Value is a great black comedy.
-- Richard Connema, Talkin’ Broadway
"Editor's Pick!"
-- SFGate.com, KQED.org, and Theatre Bay Area magazine
In this twisted, in-your-face black comedy, three industry bottom-feeders on the brink of abandoning Los Angeles, discover America's hippest, edgiest, most ironic young director convulsing in their backyard. Instead of getting the poor bastard help, these desperate wannabees imprison the whimpering film genius in their apartment until he agrees to make their celluloid dreams come true.