Weirdsville is an interesting low budget movie from Canada which has a surprisingly British feel.
Dexter, Royce and Matilda are a trio of down and out drug addicts, as nice as they are they are not contributing much to society and generally raise funds for drugs working for the local mobster Omar.
Matilda informs Royce and Dexter about a house containing stacks loads of money, she even knows the combination. The owner and his wife are in hospital due to an unfortunate incident with an icicle, so with an empty house to raid what could be more difficult. Well possibly the fact that Matilda overdoses on drugs and dies doesn’t help, nor does the fact that in an attempt to bury the body to avoid a police investigation, Dexter and Royce crash in on a group of amateur Satan worshipers’ committing a sacrifice. After said satanic dudes have accidently resurrected the dead Matilda (Taryn Manning), Royce and Dexter take the confused Matilda away before the Satanists can drain her blood, but of course things don’t go easy as that.
Weirdsville is an interesting buddy movie, the relationship between friends Dexter (Scott Speedman) and Royce (Wes Bentley) take prime focus, their journey through this story is both amusing as their antics get them deeper into trouble and also sad as their friendship becomes more strained and even breaks for a short while when things go from bad to worse.
The actual story to the movie isn’t terribly original, two problematic no hopers who work for the local mobster suddenly are required to give back some money to their boss. Said boss gives them a few hours to gather the money before trouble ensues.
What actually makes Weirdsville different to other buddy movies in this vein is quite simply the weirdness of it all, even though most of the events aren’t that weird in day to day terms, but it seems like whatever could go wrong in the weirdest way possible, does. The good thing though is that whilst being quite amusing, none of these unfortunate events are actually played for a laugh and though improbable as they may seem you do really associate with the characters who have to go through them, we’ve all had one of those days haven’t we?
With good performances from all concerned and a surprise bit part for Max Headroom star Matt Frewer, this movie does feel tight and isn’t a hastily put together cheap movie, think Trainspotting in Canada and you’ll be half way there. It manages to be over the top without actually feeling like it and that is quite impressive.
On the downside though, after watching I didn’t get a wave of satisfaction, this wasn’t because the movie was dissatisfactory or a letdown but perhaps because I didn’t really feel I had learned anything, perhaps the moral of the story was just too well hidden behind the Weirdness. Overall though it was fairly watchable and I would recommend it for a bit of a change, it’s not fun watching Hollywood blockbusters all the time in my opinion, sometimes a small independent movie is just the ticket.