[MOVIE REVIEW] The Pied Piper (Krysar) (1986)

 

OR

Title: The Pied Piper (a.k.a Krysar)

Starring:  Oldrich Kaiser, Jiri Labus, Michal Pavlicek, Vilem Cok

Genre:  Horror / Fantasy / Romance

Company:   Kratky Film Praha

Directed by: Jiri Barta

Year: 1986

MPAA Rating / TV Rating: TV MA

Buy on:  Amazon

The film starts off with the people of Hamelin doing their daily tasks when suddenly, a large group of rats come and invaded the village, causing mayhem for the townspeople.  The leaders of the town tried to find a way to get rid of the rats when they suddenly meet up with a mysterious man, who stated that he will help get rid of the rats if the town leaders pay him money.  The town leaders agree to this and the Pied Piper ended up getting rid of the rats by using his flute to send the rats to their deaths.  After that, the Pied Piper falls in love with a young woman who is very innocent.  But then, things start to go wrong when the town leaders refused to pay the Pied Piper and so, the Pied Piper decided to take his revenge against the town of Hamelin.

So, for years, I have been watching and reading lots of darker and edgier takes on various fairy tales; but I had never seen a darker and edgier take on "The Pied Piper" before, until I saw this movie.  This movie was such a dark yet entertaining experience for me as I just loved how dark this particular story got as the film goes on.  There were so many dark moments in this film, like how the Pied Piper deals with the rats or how depraved the townspeople really are and those dark moments really made this film stand out to me.  I also loved the bizarre and disturbing designs of the characters and the town of Hamelin itself as everything looks so disjointed and the animation style reminded me so much of "The Nightmare Before Christmas."  Another thing that I loved about this film was that it showed us just how corrupted the townspeople were.  In the original fairy tale, the town leaders did refuse to pay the Pied Piper, but the story seemed to be lighthearted, at least until the end.  Here, the town leaders are corrupted themselves and we get to see just how disturbing and depraved they really are, and it helped upped the bleakness of this film.  I also loved the design of the Pied Piper himself as he is not portrayed as a jolly guy like he usually is in other interpretations of the fairy tale.  Instead, he is portrayed as a creepy and silent man whose only goal is to take down the rats to get his money.  However, I do like the fact that the film tried to give the Pied Piper a softer side as he falls in love with the innocent woman.

One of the issues that I had with this film was that the first half of the film was pretty slow.  Even though the first half of the film was introducing us to the townspeople, it wouldn't be until the halfway point of the film where the Pied Piper shows up and it was a bit of a slog to go through the first half of the film.  I also found the characters of the innocent woman and the fisherman to be a bit bland in comparison to the rest of the townspeople as they don't really have much in personalities other than being more innocent than the townspeople.  I actually wished that they had developed the fisherman and the innocent woman a bit more in this film.

Overall, "The Pied Piper (Krysar)" is one of the best and darkest adaptations of the "Pied Piper" story!  Even though the beginning was very slow and the characters of the fisherman and the innocent woman weren't that well developed, the dark atmosphere and the unique animation really made this film a treat to watch and I would highly recommend this film to anyone who wants to see a darker and edgier take on the Pied Piper story.

• The Nightmare Before Christmas
• Corpse Bride
• MirrorMask

😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀

Patreon // PayPal // Crowmade // Buy Me a Coffee // Ko-Fi

😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀

Twitter // Instagram// YouTube // Letterboxd // Smashbomb // Threads // Bluesky

[SURREAL REQUEST HOLE] [SHORTS REVIEW] Face Like a Frog (1987)

 

OR

Title: Face Like a Frog

Genre: Horror / Surrealism / Fantasy

Company: N/A

Directed by: Sally Cruikshank

Year: 1987

MPAA Rating / TV Rating: N/A

Buy on:  N/A

WATCH IT ON YOUTUBE!

*This short was requested by Nova Softlock Circus.  If you would like to suggest a weird movie / TV show / short for me to review, then please leave your suggestions on the Surreal Request Hole page. *

The short is about a female frog asking for the help of a male frog, who just so happens to drive up to the mansion at that time and the female frog wants the male frog to help her deal with the haunted mansion.  Unfortunately, it turns out that the mansion has a lot of terrifying things that the male frog is not prepared for.

So, it's been awhile since I last reviewed anything on this blog.  So, I just recently saw this bizarre little short called "Face Like a Frog" and man, was this short such a wild ride!  I had previously reviewed Sally Cruikshank's other short film Quasi at the Quackadero and that short was just as weird as this short.  However, I do think that "Face Like a Frog" might have beaten "Quasi at the Quackadero" in terms of weirdness.  The first thing that I liked about this film was the animation.  The animation in this film was truly unique as everything, from the characters to the environment that they are in, is constantly moving around and it gives the short a truly bizarre and unique feel.  Another thing that I liked about this short was the music.  I was quite surprised when I found out that Danny Elfman provided the music for this short and the music did a good job at giving this short a bizarre yet creepy feel to it.  I especially loved the song "Don't Go Into the Basement" as it was extremely catchy and I loved the bizarre animation being shown during that scene.

My main problem with this short was that everything moved a bit too fast for me.  Since this short was only 5 minutes long, the characters weren't fully developed and the situation with the two frogs and the haunted mansion went by too quickly. I would have liked it if the short was a bit longer and allowed more room for the characters to be developed, as well as having more adventures between the two frog characters.

Overall, "Face Like a Frog" is a great short that brilliantly shows how to use weird animation to its fullest and it is a nice little short to watch for the Halloween season!  I definitely can't wait to watch more of Sally Cruikshank's works in the near future!

• Quasi at the Quackadero
• Closed Mondays
• Slow Bob in the Lower Dimension

😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀

Patreon // PayPal // Crowmade // Buy Me a Coffee // Ko-Fi

😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀

Twitter // Instagram// YouTube // Letterboxd // Smashbomb // Threads // Bluesky

[SHORTS REVIEW] The Triangle (Kolmnurk) (1982)

OR

Title: The Triangle

Original Title: Kolmnurk

Country: Russia (But translated in Estonian)

Genre: Romance / Surrealism / Comedy

Company: Tallinnfilm

Directed by: Priit Parn

Year: 1982

MPAA Rating / TV Rating: N/A

Buy on:  Amazon

WATCH IT ON YOUTUBE!

The story starts off with a married couple named Viktor and Julia spending a quiet evening together.  Julia is busy making dinner for her husband Viktor and is trying to get his attention.  But unfortunately, Viktor kept on reading his newspaper, ignoring Julia's cooking and her attempts to get his attention. One day however, a man named Eduard, who is the size of a mouse, suddenly comes out from the couple's stove and starts flirting with Julia, while trying to get a meal out of her.  At first, Julia was suspicious of Eduard.  But the more Viktor kept ignoring her, the more that Julia started to take a liking to Eduard, which eventually leads to Julia feeding Eduard all of the food in the house.  This upsets Viktor so much that he decided to leave Julia.  Afterwards, Eduard decides to move in with Julia and Julia cooks him various meals.  But then Eduard starts ignoring Julia's cooking just like Viktor originally did and Julia starts wondering if she should get back together with Viktor.

Wow!  This was seriously one weird animated short!  I have seen many weird animated shorts, but none of them were quite as weird as this one!  The only other animated short that was just as weird as this short was Hen, His Wife, which also had a similar premise of a couple experiencing marital problems.  This short was a bit easier to understand than "Hen, His Wife," but it still requires some interpretation on the situation that is going on.  So, here's my take on what I think is happening in this short:

My Interpretation:

So, apparently Viktor and Julia were a happy couple when they were first married.  But over the years, Viktor started to ignore Julia and Julia is trying desperately to get her husband's attention again.  I'm assuming that the food that Julia cooks represents her sexual desires for Viktor, as the food seem to weirdly take on any shape or form of her body.  Also, there were moments where realistic photo shop images of real life people would appear on both Julia and Viktor's faces, representing their desires to look beautiful towards each other.  Then when the mouse sized man, Eduard comes between Julia and Viktor, Julia feeding Eduard the food that she made represents her having an affair with Eduard, due to wanting to feel wanted by somebody, since Viktor won't give her the attention that she wants.  So, when Viktor sees Julia feeding Eduard the food that she originally made for him, this could be viewed as Viktor finally noticing Julia having an affair with Eduard and he decides to leave her because of that.  Whether or not Julia and Viktor get back together with each other in the end is something you have to see for yourself!

I just loved the way that Priit Parn created these bizarre characters as it was interesting yet a bit disturbing seeing real life photos of people's faces suddenly appear on either Viktor, Julia or Eduard's faces as those real life photos look so out of place on these hand drawn characters.  I also liked the interesting way that Priit Parn tackled the issue of martial problems by using food as a metaphor for the couple's deteriorating marriage.

The only problem that I had with this short was that it was a bit confusing to understand at times.  Like, I wasn't really sure how the food plays a role in the couple's relationship with each other and I was wondering about where Eduard exactly came from.  I mean, this is really good stuff for a surreal short, but it can be a bit hard to swallow at times.

Overall, "The Triangle" is a truly intriguing animated short about martial problems that anyone who is in a relationship will enjoy watching (just to see how weird this short was).  Also, if you are a huge fan of foreign shorts, then this is definitely one short that you should check out!

[MOVIE REVIEW] Return to Oz (1985)

OR

Title: Return to Oz

Starring:  Fairuza Balk , Nicol Williamson and Jean Marsh

Genre: Fantasy / Horror / Alternate World / Friendship

Company:  Walt Disney Company

Directedby: Walter Murch

Year: 1985

MPAA Rating / TV Rating: Rated PG

Buy on:  Amazon  //  Best Buy  //  Blu-Ray.com

 Dorothy Gale had just come back from the Land of Oz, but when she tried to tell her aunt and uncle about her adventures in Oz, they thought that Dorothy had gone crazy, so they decided to take her to a doctor that will give her treatment for her insanity.  The treatment turns out to be shock therapy and Dorothy, with a little help from a mysterious girl, escapes from the mental hospital and ended up in the land of Oz once again.  But, once Dorothy arrives in Oz, she discovers that the Land of Oz has been taken over by the Nome King and that the Scarecrow, who was the King of Oz, has been kidnapped by the Nome King.  So, Dorothy along with some help from a pumpkin man named Jack Pumpkinhead, a mechanical robot named Tik-Tok, her hen Billina and a half moose half sofa creature named the Gump try to journey to the Nome King's kingdom to rescue the Scarecrow, while encountering nightmarish creatures such as Princess Mombi and the Wheelers along the way.

Now I have a confession to make.  Whenever I talked to people who have seen "Return to Oz" when they were little, many people were terrified of this movie when they were kids.  Me however, I wasn't that scared of the movie when I was little and I actually found it to be pretty interesting and I still find it pretty interesting to this very day!  This movie has actually turned my expectations on its head as it is a much darker sequel to "The Wizard of Oz" that has caused some controversy among "Oz" fans and yet, it was pulled off extremely well to make it stand out from "The Wizard of Oz." The surprising thing about all this is that this was the most faithful adaptation of L. Frank Baum's "Oz" books in terms of tone, even though "The Wizard of Oz" is hailed as one of the greatest movies of all time.  What I really loved about this movie was the fact that it was darker and edgier than "The Wizard of Oz" and the villains in this movie seem genuinely threatening and are actually out to harm Dorothy and her friends.  Probably my favorite scenes in this movie were any scenes with the Nome King as he seems to be friendly towards Dorothy and her friends, but you can tell that he has some evil intentions up his sleeves and he actually means to trick Dorothy into a sense of security in order to manipulate her throughout her adventures.  I loved the new friends that Dorothy makes along the way, especially Tik-Tok and Jack Pumpkinhead as they were truly original and fun to see on screen.

Parents should know that this movie can be pretty terrifying for small children.  There are many scenes where Dorothy and her friends are in constant peril and are in danger of being killed by the vllains.  Also, there are some genuinely scary scenes such as the scene where Dorothy accidentally wakes up a headless Princess Mombi, who tries to capture Dorothy and the scenes with the Wheelers.  Parents might want to screen this movie first before showing it to their children.  Also, the reason why I took off half a point from the rating was because the movie can get pretty confusing at times and it was hard for me to follow what exactly happened in the plot at times.

Overall, "Return to Oz" is a truly enjoyable film that "Oz" fans would enjoy extremely well!  However, this movie can get pretty scary at times, so watch this film with extreme caution.

• The Nightmare Before Christmas
• Coraline
• Corpse Bride