Gleeful black-and-white indie cinema made for no less than $7,000. With limited cash flow, director Ryland Birckson Cole-Tews leans on his slapstick humor to tell a condensed story, but even then, some visual sequences of montage consist of fantastical psychedelic images and practical effects help fill out this movie.
Cole-Tews, as director and star, leads the psyop into monster-infested waters with a weapons expert, sonar expert, and, ah fuck, forgot the last one…he has a sword. Cole-Tews’s performance as the fake sea captain with heavy inflection control and use of close-ups from Dutch angles and out of nowhere jump cuts made for not only laughs but allows for the pure acting to come through. The small details of the character writing make up for the plot being somewhat nonexistent, but the film isn’t exactly about the story but the form. It’s a work-in-progress film for a filmmaker building his style. Stupid, Milwaukee fun with wild visuals and characters that are memorable. The B-movie visual style of this film lends itself to the formalistic approach of a giant crab monster living at the bottom of Lake Michigan. Midwestern humor is a special type of weird and encountering it on screen always brings my unbridled attention and a smile.
Rating: ☆☆☆½
Weird Verdict:
Weird Cinema 