Watch it now: ‘Assholes’, ‘Barracuda’, ‘Tom of Finland’

Three scrappy 2017 titles that first surfaced at SXSW still circulate on the fringes, each carrying its own brand of provocation and unease. The films share a festival origin yet land in wildly different registers, from outright provocation to quiet family fracture to stylized biography. Their loglines and verdicts remain intact, yet fresh details about where to find them and how their makers moved on add useful context nearly a decade later.

Assholes

Logline: Debauched pair of perverts takes NYC from behind, one kink at a time.

Verdict: Meet-cute this movie ain’t. Girl meets guy, guy fists girl, girl & guy go on a wild hedonistic spree in NYC, terrorizing everyone they meet. Filthy, deranged and utterly absurd, Assholes follows Adam (Vack), Adah (Vack’s real life sister Betsey Brown), and Aaron (Jack Dunphy), mainly focusing on the latter two as they hook up and indulge in activities that’d make even Divine blush.

Peter Vack has been accused of many things with this movie: resurrecting the mumblecore movement; pulling great performances out of his cast; giving John Waters a run for his money as the new Pope of Trash. But where Pink Flamingos et al. transcend beyond the filth to work as cautionary tales, Assholes can’t get past the degradation to provide a deeper message. Did Peter Vack brainstorm Assholes (his directorial debut) by literally throwing shit at the wall? Did he have any aim other than gaining column inches? We don’t know, but this is not the kind of film you’ll ever forget seeing. Might want to think twice about seeing it in the first place, and if you do: be sure to pack a barf bag. Peter Vack later directed www.RachelOrmont.com in 2024 and acted in several other features; Assholes remains available to rent or buy on major platforms.

Barracuda

Logline: A strange woman brings her daddy issues to Texas.

Verdict: Every family has its secrets, and sometimes those secrets are living, breathing people. Barracuda works in two ways: as a darkly depressing melodrama focusing on fractured families, and as a treatise on exclusion. After her country star father stops visiting, Sinaloa (Sophie Reid) crosses the Atlantic, barreling into the life of her almost stable half-sister Merle (Allison Tolman). Sinaloa hopes she can work out her issues with their now-deceased country-star dad. Co-directed by Julia Halperin and Jason Cortlund, Barracuda could play out like an awkward country song, but avoids the tropes to create a chilling and effective portrayal of long-simmering familial bitterness. As Sinaloa and Merle’s mutual mistrust and hostility escalates, the audience is psychologically battered with an omnipresent undercurrent of dread. This ain’t no love song, but it is a ballad of love, loss, and regret. The film streams on Prime Video and Apple TV with no major new releases or awards since its 2017 run.

Tom of Finland

Logline: Nazi recruit cum leather legend Tom of Finland’s life captured through the glory hole.

Verdict: Tom of Finland was an artist, WW2 vet, and gay man who lived in a time when homosexuality was criminalized in his home country. Fighting Nazis was too easy for him – after the war he turned his hand to fighting for the freedom to embrace his sexuality. For a film about a leather daddy icon, Tom of Finland is curiously sterile. Pekka Strang certainly looks the part as Touko “Tom” Laaksonen, who turned his fascist nightmares into erotic art, inspiring gay subculture in the process. However, like so many other biopics on key gay figures, Tom of Finland shies away from showing more of the kink and transgression that made these figures so interesting. Still, Tom of Finland is stylish and enjoyable, with director Dome Karukoski clearly putting a lot of love into bringing his subject’s unique aesthetic to life. The film earned roughly $1.8 million worldwide, served as Finland’s Oscar submission for Best Foreign Language Film in 2018 without securing a nomination, and has streamed in various international territories including earlier Netflix regions.

Streaming Availability

Assholes stays accessible through rental and purchase windows on the usual storefronts. Barracuda sits on Prime Video and Apple TV for subscribers looking for a quick pull. Tom of Finland surfaces on assorted international services, with past Netflix availability in select regions. None of the titles require hunting through gray-market links, which keeps the original festival curiosity intact for new viewers.

Director Career Updates

Peter Vack followed Assholes with www.RachelOrmont.com in 2024 and kept acting in smaller features through 2023 and 2024. Dome Karukoski continued directing projects in Finland and abroad after Tom of Finland, maintaining a steady output without returning to the same biographical lane. Their trajectories show how a single SXSW slot can serve as one chapter rather than a defining peak.

Critical Legacy and Ratings

Assholes holds a 4.0 on IMDb from a modest number of votes, reflecting its polarizing reception. Tom of Finland sits at 6.8 on the same site with additional Rotten Tomatoes coverage that notes its stylistic polish. Barracuda never broke wide yet maintains steady if modest streaming traffic, suggesting a quiet endurance among viewers drawn to slow-burn family dramas rather than festival flash.

SXSW 2017 Context

All three films screened at the same edition of the festival. Assholes landed in the Visions section, Barracuda competed in the narrative slate, and Tom of Finland arrived as an international title with strong queer-cinema interest. The programming captured a moment when indie programmers still carved space for abrasive experiments alongside more conventional festival fare.

Together the titles illustrate how a single festival cycle can launch wildly different careers and reception arcs. Some linger mainly as curiosities, others as quiet streaming staples. Their shared 2017 origin keeps them linked even as their afterlives diverge.