Weirdsville | Film Review | Slant Magazine

FILM MOVIE REVIEW

Weirdsville **

by Rob Humanick on October 15, 2007 Jump to Comments (0) or Add Your Own

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Like a joint that waits to kick in until after Dumbo's pink elephant dream sequence has already unraveled, Weirdsville's pleasures come too little too late. Scattershot and irreverent, the film initially recalls the broadly overloaded stylistics of many a Pulp Fiction-inspired film, its story of two stoners attempting to scrounge together enough money to pay off a violent crime boss by the end of the night acting as a springboard for a smorgasbord of random happenings of the absurd and quirky kind, beginning with an apparent drug overdose and ending with the voice of God channeled through a rat. The film gets its shits and giggles from garden gnomes, satanic rituals gone awry, and little people wielding flails while on mall security patrol, but such happenings only sporadically rise above a sense of moderately discombobulated madness. These excesses fail to make up for the film's failed, alternately muted and obvious, attempts at philosophical inquiry. Weirdsville, however, is ultimately too good-natured to become irate and too laid back to achieve the zonked-out bliss it aims for, making for the kind of film one wishes they could like more than they actually do. Nonetheless, it is one not without its feverish instances of hilarity, none topping the moment when a small battalion of little people, adorned with chain mail armor and medieval weaponry, attack the Satanist occupants of a supped-up VW—all set to the tune of "Ride of the Valkyries." Hoping to stop the attack, the cult leader—as if beckoned by some idiotic prince of darkness—blurts out, "Give them some candy!" Were such wonderful stoner-isms more plentiful, Weirdsville would more aptly live up to the promise of its name.

Director(s): Allan Moyle
Screenplay: Willem Wennekers
Cast: Wes Bentley, Scott Speedman, Taryn Manning, Dax Ravina, Greg Bryk, Maggie Castle, Raoul Bhaneja
Distributor: Magnolia Pictures
Runtime: 91 min.
Rating: R
Year: 2007