Weirdsville

Weirdsville (2007)

A pair of friends, Dexter and Royce, that are hooked on hardcore drugs make a deal with a dealer named Omar to move some of his product to settle a debt they owe. But when Royce and his girl Matilda do most of the drugs instead it puts Dexter and Royce in a bad situation. If having Omar looking for his money isn’t bad enough Matilda overdoes and dies! So Dexter and Royce head off to the local drive-in to bury her, where they witness some Satanists kill someone as a human sacrifice. Then Matilda wakes up from being dead and they all are chased by the Satanists, who think she was raised by the Devil himself. Throw in a wealthy hippy with an icicle in his brain, midget medieval re-enactors, a safe full of cash, and you have a really weird movie (see how the title of the movie fits in?).

I love quirky and strange movies so when I read the back of the DVD case I really was excited to check out Weirdsville. Then when I discovered that Allan Moyle, who also directed Pump up the Volume and Empire Records, directed it I went straight home and watched this. Either I’m getting old, the joke is getting old, or Moyle missed the mark on this movie because I just didn’t enjoy Weridsville. I found the story really boring and drawn out. I’ve seen comedies before where you have drugged out characters, but I just didn’t find either the Dexter or Royce characters funny at all. In fact I found them pathetic and not at all likeable. I suppose that might have been what Royce was going for, but that made it hard for me to enjoy the movie. The jokes are old and uninspired, the attempts at quirky or funny characters don’t work, and the pacing of the movie is awful. Seriously was dressing a group of midgets up in chain mail and have them attack a VW really supposed to make me laugh? The movie also jumps the narrative around a bit by starting in the middle and then zipping back in time. If that weren’t’ enough there are a couple of flashbacks that pop up as well. Tack on an ending that leaves a lot to be desired and then the pain is over.

Wow that was a pretty negative paragraph there. I suppose that I might have had some high expectations given the director’s previous work and that this is normally the kind of movie that I enjoy. There are a couple of cool things about the movie. The cast does a decent job in their roles, but just aren’t given much to work with. Matt Frewer has a fun, though way too small, role as the icicle skewered hippy. The movie also has a unique visual style and includes a couple interesting sequences. One involves one of the characters skating down the road that I thought was cool. There are also a couple funny bits, including some fun with a rake and a lawn gnome.

I’ve used a phrase before to describe movies and I think it will apply here as well. Weirdsville is trying way too hard to be cool and in ends up coming off as sad. The jokes, characters, and story just didn’t work, which is the risk that filmmakers run when they try to make a quirky movie. I can’t recommend Weirdsville.

1 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer