Rating: 3 Pulses
Starring John Cusack,
Steve Buscemi, Eddie Izzard
Directed by Anthony Leondis
Rated PG
If an inspirational poster of a kitten in a noose saying “hang in there” warms your cold, cold heart, then welcome to the town of Malaria. Clouds like smog block out the sun year round and evil scientists compete in the Evil Science Fair. And in this evil town the would-be Frankensteins each have their own humpbacked helpers, all referred to as, what else, Igor.
One Igor (Cusack) in particular, however, isn’t happy with his evil lot in life. When Igor’s master fails to take Igor’s advice, he makes an impromptu appointment with Death, leaving an opening in the Evil Science Fair which Igor plans to fill. Like all underdogs, Igor is a dreamer, a sad unlucky little dreamer, and his goal to create the evilest being that ever eviled, er, lived yields not the menace he hopes but instead a mutant kewpie monster named Eva (Shannon) whose evil bone has yet to be activated.
Thus begins Igor, a film aiming to join the ranks of The Nightmare Before Christmas for a Hot Topic generation. This co-opting of freak culture by the mainstream upsets me as much as anyone, but Igor’s gleeful reveling in everything evil was enough to make me temporarily set aside my pretensions.
Writer Chris McKenna, whose only apparent credits are authoring a few “American Dad” episodes, fills this world with wicked inventions and demonic denizens. The Brain Washing spa offers everything from a simple brain scrub to the Axe Murderer’s Special. Igor’s own homemade cohorts include a dunce’s brain in a bubblegum machine called Brian (get it?) and some sort of immortal, suicidal rabbit zombie named Scamper (Buscemi). Then there’s the villain (even evil towns have them), Dr. Schadenfreude (Izzard), a faux evil scientist with a penchant for glam and maybe Klaus Nomi. And did I mention the blind orphans?
This movie may be for youngins, but most of its surprisingly dark gallows humor will probably go over their heads. They’ll certainly understand the simplistic story of redemption and laugh when the slapstick violence ensues, and maybe upon a rewatching in 10 years they’ll see the hypocrisy of a movie that caters to the fringe crowd, basks in its own depravity, and then forces a moral of sunshine and lollipops. Hopefully though, they’ll just have an evil good time.
