Evil Toons and Shinbone Alley April 24th, 2010
Originally Written 05/02/08
I got together with Jen, Gan and Chris for a bad movie night last night. Gan’s brother had an old VHS tape of the 1992 movie Evil Toons, that had promise, but unfortunately it turned out to be like an R-rated version of Manos: the Hands of Fate. As I quipped, you’d think a bunch of slutty girls in a house with a lusty werewolf and David Carradine would be fun, but somehow they managed to prevent that.
Even bare breasts didn’t help the movie, well not much. And I don’t know how they blackmailed David Carradine to be in that turd; he didn’t even look like he was having fun slumming it. The best part of the movie was the necronomicon book they found, complete a talking face on the cover and with VCL art of lascivious demons and werewolves inside. One of them comes to life, and the animation was good. Unfortunately they blew their budget on that and could only afford about 40 seconds of it. Otherwise the film was painfully dull and plodding.
Afterwards we watched a movie I’d rented which sounded interesting. Shinbone Alley had a neat early 70s animation style, which was reminiscent of School House rock segments in many places. I liked the slightly-gritty look of the backgrounds. It also got trippy and weird in a few segments. It’s a musical and based on a series of stories, so the plot is kind rambled, but it was interesting.
It started out kind of whimsical and fun but got more serious and darker as the movie went on. I kind of liked the movie, but it had some severe problems. In the end it was a drama about a dysfunctional friendship. It acknowledged that people rarely change and if you love/care for someone than you have to take them faults and all.
That’s all well and good, but the movie didn’t seem to know what its message really was. In the end it’s almost a celebration of this damaged character, without acknowledging how messed up she is. It was an interesting idea, but the story could’ve been a little tighter and the ending left kind of a bitter taste in my mouth.