Weirdsville

Weirdsville might come off as another stoner comedy to some, but to me it's more then that. Maybe because it's Canadian and maybe because the mall scene was shot in my hometown of Hamilton, but I really took to this film. It simply works. The two leads are Wes Bently (weird camera neighbour from American Beauty) and Scott Speedman (mutated vamp/werewolf from Underworld) and they work very well together. The satanic cult folk aren't too great but you get use to them. The girlfriend, Taryn Manning is the girlfriend. The story goes like this, two friends think that the girl has died from an overdose, so they go to bury her in a drive-in. When they get there, they stumble across a few people performing satanic cult rituals. Those satanists chase after them when they screw up their rituals. Oh yeah...and the girl is not really dead. So the rest of the film is them running from these guys. It doesn't sound like much, but it was both fresh and entertaining. Canadian films get the label of always being 'too artistic' or even for a lack of better words 'too Canadian' but Weirdsville in some sort of way breaks that mold. It doesn't glorify Canada like 'Going The Distance' which means it doesn't stick out like a sore thumb. Unless you knew the locations and some of the slang, you'd think it was some other American film. I recommend this film to anyone looking for a entertainment in this variety, it's a funny low-budget entertaining film. In addition, the soundtrack is great. Give it a rent....if you can find it.

I watched this a couple weeks ago with one of my best friends who shall remain nameless...(caugh,caugh) Ronnie. i was all depresed 'cause my supposed best friend had slept with my ex-girlfriend and lied to me about it.SoRonnie was getting me drunk on straight vodka and we decided to put in "Weirdsville" and holy Sh*t I gotta say this is one of the coolest damn movies ever! I mean Scott Speedman, Wes Bentley and Taryn Manning are a perfect trio! And the mix of horror and comedy has bred a new genre of cinema! Now, you old school, Harvard educated movie critics out there are probably saying that this is just another piece of crap for Gen-Xers but it isn't! Sure, it may be a little sach-religious, I don't know but what I do know is that everyone who has ever heard of this movie has got to give it a chance. Enjoy.

Haven't we had enough stuff blowing up, massive body counts, and hilarious yet disturbing dysfunctional families yet? I have! Thankfully there are directors like Allen Moyle who have no problem telling a strange little story sprinkled with junkies, a burn out hippie with a head wound, Satan worshipers, talking mice, winking gnomes, and a drug dealers with strange accent who likes to curl (that sport with a big stone a brooms) in his spare time. You just don't know where this film is going most of the time, yet it's easy to follow. Oh sure the protagonists come out on top in the end just as one might expect. And an explosion caused by oxygen alone is highly unlikely, but it's still damned entertaining. Virtually every character is inept, even the drug dealer and his muscle, but they all (well most all) muddle through somehow. Not so special scenery (Canada in winter *yuck*), but it's not needed the fine cast of characters and odd little story carry the film...beautifully. And the "good guys" win, the bad guys don't, and (almost) everyone lives happily ever after. But what the heck. It's the way it's done.

I absolutely adore this movie. Some friends and I rented it only because there was nothing else in the store and I am so glad we did. It is so random and definitely lives up to its title. I recommend it to anyone who has an open mind and a sense of humour because you will need both. The acting is amazing, and the story line is so funny, and so over the top that it almost seems plausible, considering the characters. Taryn Manning is great, I have always trusted the movies she's been in (minus Crossroads) and this just validates it. The partners in crime are brilliant and completely believable as addicts, and every character that comes in and out of the plot brings even more color to the film. I've been searching the net to buy as I can't seem to find it anywhere in stores.

this could have been a really fun/funny movie - a lot could have been done with the premise & story. unfortunately its a DNF because of the poor execution.....for example the scene when the drug dealer/loan shark is shark is threatening them in the alley....oooohhh, shivers of disgust. i felt so embarrassed for whoever made that movie, real face turning red stuff. It's a compelling argument against government subsidization of the movie & TV biz....we all know what socialism does to an economy, this is what it does to a movie. Sorry my fellow Canucks, i only have so many hour on this planet, from now on if its made in Canada, I'm not watching (unless its by my friend Kevin Sullivan).

A lot of Canadian film is good, but this is sadly not up to par. There are a few good laughs here and there but it seems like this film was trying to imitate other, better films like Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Pulp Fiction. It doesn't work. The acting isn't as good. The story is weaker and the whole thing feels rather rather contrived. Instead of introducing new ideas into this drug caper/comedy genre, the same old ideas are tromped out and they aren't very fulfilling for the viewer. There are coincidences here and there and I don't really mind coincidences if they work. Here they didn't and I found that brought the movie down.

Weirdsville follows two junkie friends as they careen through a night of excess and oddities. The main problem with it is that all the weird situations feel contrived, like someone without much imagination sat around trying to think of weird things. It doesn't have the bizarre, what-comes-next edge of a Tarantino or Lynch movie; each time something happens that is supposed to be weird, it's just banal. The acting, production and other aspects of the movie are fine; it's the script that suffers from a lack of weirdness. No doubt it sounded funny on paper. The movie is watchable and better than a lot of films I've paid more to see. It's just that the synopsis and title misled me; I was expecting some really strange turns to the plot and all I got were midgets and dope fiends.

It's just wonderful to see how three best friends wind up in a story that's just so complicated and poetic. I was amazed by the outcome of every situation and I think there should be more movies like this one. Even the music was perfect for the movie. I also really like it when the makers put something useful to know in the movie and in this one, they certainly did, but what I liked most is that the piece that the mouse (or rat) played in the story, without it, the movie would have been less meaningful and I think it's really great that people can come up with these things to put in their movie which completes it ... without it, the film wouldn't have been the same. ... great piece of work

Besides that the two lead actors are pretty funny I hated most bits of this movie. Basically this is a stupid stoner caper with a catch. The catch is that instead of smoking weed the idiot protagonists are addicted to Heroin. Unlike in Trainspotting these characters just act stoned and I think if they were on heroin as much as depicted they wouldn't be able to drive, communicate or function. Totally unrealistic. Why glamorise the needle? Are we so desensitised by drug use that we resort to crazy heroin antics. Nutter hilarity ensues with all things cinematic: Midgets, Satanic worshippers and the mafia no trite cliché is abandoned. Do Not like this one bit. How is this in the 2007 Toronto Film Festival?

This friend of mine told me about this movie, he got some kind of a screening pass, I don't know... so I walk in there expecting a bunch of vomiting heroin junkies speaking German and all that arty stuff. I never thought a movie about junkies would be that funny and out there. It's so much more than one of those 'don't do drugs' movies Hollywood makes - it's got car chases, gangsters, guns, and there's Satanists and midgets dressed like knights, it's messed up. One of the Satanist freaks is that freaky killer from History of Violence... he's funny in this but I kept getting the creeps every time I saw him. Scott Speedman and Wes Bentley were hilarious, they played off each other really well - they were funny and it didn't even look like they were acting most of the time, they looked like they've known each other their whole life. I was surprised with Bentley, he's not a stiff like usual, he kinda plays the lovable bonehead. Taryn Manning is really good too. There's a bunch of hysterical parts in the movie, I don't really want to give any of it away... so I'm not sure what else to say. They shot it in my home town Brantford, I didn't know until I was watching it and recognized the downtown, that'll send anybody from Brant county for a spin... they shot some of it at that old drive-in on the west end, just before the Blue Bird plant. The music is pretty cool too - The Dears is in it, so is The Constantines and Shout Out Out Out Out, it's about frigging time somebody started using cool Canadian bands in a movie. Speaking of which, I thought it was pretty rad that the guy who directed it did Pump Up The Volume too. They do some cool stuff with the camera work too, to put you in the mindset of a junkie. Another cool thing is they don't really tell you what the drug is - heroin maybe, or coke... I like that you don't really know cause it's not really the point what drug they're on - it's that they're on drugs period.