The Weird Kidz
by Hope Madden
Let’s say you just watched Wildwood, and you need more animation. I’m going to be honest, The Weird Kidz would be an odd choice. But not a bad one.
Writer/director Zach Passero’s animation style bends a little closer to a decidedly white trash version of South Park, but the visuals perfectly suit the film’s low-fi, late 80s vibe. Somewhere in the New Mexico desert, sixth grader Dug (Tess Passero) and his buddies Fatt (Brian Ceely) and Mel (Glenn Bolton) head out for a cool camping weekend with Dug’s high school senior brother, Wyatt (Ellar Coltrane) and his very cool girlfriend, Mary (Sydney Wharton).
Yes, Wyatt needles his little brother and calls all the boys “scrote.” Indeed, he may not be a great choice to keep an eye on a gaggle of middle schoolers, especially once the murderous monster emerges. But Passero’s writing is full of genuine fondness for these characters, and they for each other, no matter what dangerously idiotic things they may do.
Hand-drawn over eight years, Passero’s film is an obvious labor of love, a crudely drawn but not inaccurate remembrance of a time when children went unsupervised. Youngsters were free to waste hours on end at a convenience store racking up an arcade game high score and eyeing the covers of porn magazines. Adults would look the other way as pre-teens shoplifted beers and headed, seatbelt free, out to the desert. You could just walk around with BB guns. The delightfully crude animation fits right in.
As does the violence, because dangerously idiotic choices often lead to bad places.
Passero never gives up on his kids, and I don’t mean that in a traditionally wholesome way. Mary’s been in the back seat of a squad car before. None of them have much of a future, and Passero presents them without judgment. The way his characters—dumbasses, all—care for each other is probably my favorite part of the film.
The Weird Kidz turns from sweetly raunchy comedy to horror comedy with little difficulty and without losing any of the unapologetic authenticity of its Gen X childhood vibe.
