(2004)
Dir - Bill Plympton
Overall: GOOD
An early rock and roll era, high school comedy send-up with eccentric animation and a back from the dead finale, Bill Plympton's Hair High is deliriously deranged "cult movie" material due to its sheer singularity alone. Plympton's quirky style truly embraces the limitless, exaggerated potential inherent in the animated medium and had already won an Oscar as well as been featured on MTV's Animania and Liquid Television by the time he got around to this particular full-length. The humor is so utterly bizarre that it is likely to delight avant-garde fans who are already fond of Grease, the macabre, juvenile sex jokes, and Ren & Stimpy tinged absurdity. Another interesting aspect is the all-star cast, even down to the most minor of roles with Justin Long, Sarah Silverman, Tom Noonan, Matt Groening, Beverley D'Angelo, Ed Begley Jr., and both Keith and David Carradine all making an appearance. The musical soundtrack by Hank Bones, (a frequent collaborator with Plympton), is a convincing pastiche of late 50s surfer rock with a hilarious, school-rallying cheerleader anthem thrown in as well.
(2008)
Dir - Toby Wilkins
Overall: MEH
Shot in Oklahoma with a small cast and on a tight budget that nevertheless produces some passable special effects, (even if most of them are barely noticeable due to the hyper-cut, twitchy editing), a movie like Toby Wilkins' second full-length Splinter still largely hinges on idiotic behavior amongst its characters to move the plot along, which is a set-back that many a horror movie throughout the last century has proven incapable of bypassing. By the time the second act is winding down, we have been introduced to our main characters, half of whom are despicable scumbags that are effortlessly holding the other half hostage. When unforeseen circumstances escalate and they find all parties involved not only cooperating but also bonding together, a small yet crucial amount of moronic decisions that got them in such a predicament makes everyone on screen come across like an annoying dumb-dumb who is not likely to garnish enough sympathy from anyone watching. The second act stalls when everyone gets trapped and they contemplate their scenario, which ultimately comes down to hiding from a pair of severed hands that run around like a hyped-up spider. Some of the humor is intended in what is essentially a gritted up B-movie, but just as much seems accidental and the entire affair never becomes all that interesting.
(2009)
Dir - Paul Solet
Overall: MEH
Writer/director Paul Solet's Grace is a gross, somewhat compelling, and ultimately uneven musing on obsessive maternal attachment that does not really answer any of the questions it raises. A full-length debut for Solet and one that was based off of a short film of the same name, some of the issues lie in the underwritten characters who exhibit questionable behavior that is logically off-putting in perhaps unintentional ways. While the traumatized plight of Jordan Ladd's protagonist is firmly established, her loony tunes, unsympathetically possessive mother in law and overtly concerned midwife come across as if large sections of their backstory are essential to what transpires, yet we are given no such backstories. A zombie/vampire baby delivers the creeps on a conceptual level and Solet wisely steers away from depicting the newborn as a Spirit Halloween yard decoration, which makes it more naturally unsettling. Still, other elements like New Age alternate lifestyles and veganism are kind of tossed into the mix without any proper footing, coming off as mere haphazard concepts that seem irrelevant when everything reaches its violent, nasty climax. There is either a more brazen, camped-up B-movie here or a better, sincere examination of motherhood to be respectfully dealt with. Unfortunately though, it drops the ball in both potential respects.
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