In 2023, Nick Murcott invited me to audition for the role of “the Redditor” for his short film about “gooning.” Titled Gooners, the short follows Benny (Kai Perrignon), a chronic masturbator and porn addict, as he loses his grip on reality to “the goon”—the profound peace of mind achieved by riding the edge of ejaculation for hours. Given that I had never used Reddit nor had I masturbated until my mind went blank, I respectfully declined Murcott’s kind offer.

In October 2024, Gooners landed on the belly of SXSW Sydney. I invited writer-director Murcott and lead actor Perrignon to sit down and talk about their raunchy film for an interview. They kindly accepted. A full circle.

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Đăng Tùng Bạch: In your words, Nick, could you describe what kind of film Gooners is?

Nick Murcott: Gooners is the kind of film that is inspired by the internet culture and wears that on its sleeve. It’s in the same niche of films as We’re All Going to the World’s Fair [2021, dir. Jane Schoenbrun] and Unfriended [2014, dir. Levan Gabriadze]. The more I worked on it, the more I felt that the internet, as what has ushered in the digital age, is inherently connected to digital technologies. That realisation helped inform the shape of the film as an addition to the ‘digital cinema’ niche, which I consider a subgenre consisting of films that embrace the aesthetics of early digital videos.

ĐTB: Speaking of digital cinema, could you talk to me about the shooting formats of the film?

NM: Originally, I intended to shoot the entire film on MiniDV but because the film was produced as part of a university assignment, it was required that I shoot parts of it using a hi-res cinema camera. However, with editing, the parts that are jarringly high-definition come across as moments of clarity for the main character, whereas the scrunched-up image shows us his disintegrating mind.

ĐTB: I thought the editing really made the film; would you agree?

NM: I do agree. I always had the edit on my mind when I was filming Gooners. The editing is heavily inspired by the ‘Victor Takes a Trip’ montage from The Rules of Attraction [2002]. Gooners was supposed to be a four-to-six-minute short, another parameter of the university assignment, and we shot roughly four hours of footage. I think the pressure as the director really came down on me in the edit because I had been very fortunate to work with an amazing crew and I wanted to do right by them. Even if I had the edit of the film in mind, picking and choosing six minutes from four hours of footage for a frantically paced and chaotic short film was a challenge—a challenge and a blessing, I should say. It was a very exciting process to ask myself which shot to include and which shot to leave on the cutting room floor. There were infinite possibilities for what the film could be and each draft of the edit was drastically different from the next.

Kai Perrignon: I want to add that it was fascinating to see the film evolve over the different edits that Nick showed me. It was as though the film had continuously found itself or that Nick had continuously found the film. I think that the identity of the film could very well be shaped by not just the editing but also the editing process that consisted of multiple redrafts.

NM: I think this editing process was a constant cycle of building something up and tearing it apart at its seams, which got more and more intense the closer it was to the film’s completion. In that sense, the editing process is also representative of the protagonist’s mind.

ĐTB: As I understand, Kai, you are one of Nick teachers at the university he made this film for. How did you navigate the teacher-student and director-actor relationships while working with Nick on a sexually explicit film like Gooners?

KP: It was a very peculiar space to navigate. The crew was mostly made up of my students. In a lot of ways, my students are my peers. We are all artists and I have a lot of respect for Nick and his collaborators. However, they are my students and there were boundaries that Nick and I had to set to keep a safe space for everyone. As a fan of films that tackle taboo subjects, I am always keen to lend a hand to artists that are like-minded, but I understand very well that some people can get uncomfortable while working on these transgressive films. Safety is a must. This is especially true in the case of a student film production. However, even with all the safety measures considered, I still find it difficult to process the nuances in creative collaborations with students.

ĐTB: How did you two shape the performances to match the high-octane and fast-paced energy of Gooners?

KP: We had a lot of rehearsals to hash out all the details regarding the performance. Nick and I worked together to build Benny from our different interpretations of the character. We explored his physicality extensively and had a lot of discussions about what’s on his jumbled mind. On set, Nick provided me with a lot of space to experiment with the performance and he gave me a lot of great pieces of direction. Rarely was there miscommunication between us. As for the energy, I have a lot of anxiety, which happens to be what Benny has. So, a lot of it was channelling myself into the character and heightening the expressions through voice and movement. There were moments where Benny’s anxiety bleeds into mine, which was a challenge, but I was given a lot of space to tackle that.

NM: I am a person with anxiety, as well, and Kai and I managed to use it to our advantage. The screenplay itself came from my own anxieties and intrusive thoughts of self-isolation. I was blessed with amazing collaborators who provided Kai and I with a lot of support so we could hone in on the character of Benny and how to present him for the screen. Kai’s co-stars never had to tap into any frenetic parts of their psyches and I think that balances out the energy of the production.

ĐTB: You mentioned discussions about the character of Benny. How did they help create a character who is as incorrigible as he is piteous?

NM: Kai opened my eyes to a lot that I had not seen about Benny. For example, when I wrote the script, the ending of the film was supposed to be Benny’s ultimate moment of euphoria, when he finally ejaculates. However, Kai read it as Benny having surrendered all of himself to this self-destructive habit of self-pleasure—being “slain in the bate,” if you will. We arrived at the conclusion that the moment Benny ejaculates is that of pure bliss, but it also signals a pitfall that immediately follows. Kai and I agreed that Benny knew his life was falling apart but he kept on going down the same spiral because he no longer had any control. It was as though Benny was stuck in sleep paralysis, watching his own life crumble in a wet dream he cannot wake up from. Together, our different interpretations of the character in this pivotal moment helped create a layered character that, despite his depravity, can be sympathised with.

KP: I personally resonated with Benny’s antagonistic relationship with himself. He is aware of how depressing his life is, being trapped in a mental goon cave as well as a literal one. However, he does find happiness in what he does, at least on a superficial level through watching porn and masturbating non-stop. What I wanted to explore with this character was how his trains of thought collide: one that carries the short-lived bliss of erotic thrills and one that carries his anxieties and his self-awareness. Gooners also has a queer subtext towards the end with the introduction of “the Redditor,” who joins Benny in the goon cave and masturbates together with him. This part of the character is something I do not relate to but it makes sense for the character and I had a fascinating experience exploring it. Benny finds a deep, intimate connection with the Redditor through their shared love of gooning, which is a connection he never has with his girlfriend. At the same time, Benny has internalised homophobia and it makes him feel uncomfortable having that deep connection—a sexual connection, in a sense—with another man. I think this adds another set of tracks for Benny’s trains of thought as he goons on.

ĐTB: What do you think the film suggests about the way the internet is consumed nowadays, with the number of those who ‘doomscroll’ being on the rise?

NM: The editing of the film tries to mirror the overload of information that consumers of the internet engage with on a daily basis. It evokes those bite-size videos that carry short bursts of dopamine: an American Dad clip playing on top of Subway Surfers gameplay, a Family Guy funny moments compilation playing on top of some gameplay of Fortnite, and so many more. Gooners was made because I am actively on the internet and actively consuming various kinds of popular content, especially memes. Gooning, as a meme, has had its ups and downs in terms of popularity in the last two years and, as a result, Gooners has dipped in and out of the ‘cringe’ pool for me. This is why films born from internet culture provoke me. They are very much of the moment and carry within them distinct eras of the internet. Ten, twenty years from now, someone will watch Gooners and immediately think of the year 2023 or 2024. As a filmmaker, capturing something as ever-changing as the internet in a film is something that interests me.

KP: Nick mentioned gooning as a meme, but I also wanted to discuss it as a phenomenon. Gooning is for gooners what meditating is for monks. Nirvana is the ultimate goal of meditating and the “goon state” is the ultimate goal of engaging with “the goon.” Both of these refer to the transcendental state achieved through relinquishing one’s control. The difference is that meditating is a spiritual practice and gooning could be seen as an addiction. In the same sense, doomscrolling is an addiction, too. Gooning and doomscrolling are both acts of surrendering one’s control to the digital image for as long as possible and through these similarities, on top of it being a film about internet culture, I think Gooners does touch on the issue of the overconsumption of the internet.

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Leaving Gooners in the year 2024, Murcott and Perrignon continue on their paths to realise their bold, transgressive visions. In 2025, they are collaborating again on Amplexus!, a Southern Gothic erotic thriller about an anthropomorphic frog who is enamoured with a human girl. Perrignon is collaborating with another student on a puppet musical film about necrophilia.

Gooners screened at SXSW Sydney this October.

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Đăng Tùng Bạch is a Naarm-based filmmaker from Hanoi, Vietnam. Short films he directed have been screened in Vietnam and Australia, as well as in Europe. He writes about films to understand the stories they hold, hoping he can tell stories of his own one day.