When I look at the state of the Hollywood machine these days, with the same darlings of the industry continually picking up work more on the strength of their brand than on their art, I wonder where the really original injection of work will come from. It's all well and good suggesting new-fangled technological advances that will shift the silver screen onto another plane of existence, but there has to be stylistic and creative progression to back up the advances in the trade or you end up with an empty headed goddess. Like
MeganFox sort of... So to come across a film like
Pop Skull, which makes a mockery of the term micro-budget and still manages to be an excellent experience is a good little turn up for the books. And one that shouldnt be underestimated. Here we have the perfect example of how to make a film that has a real statement to make (as well as one that can easily be classed alongside the better recent horrors) but which manages to do so without any financial muscle at all- that it got any kind of distribution deal outside of digital providers is both wondrous and testament to its surprising prowess.
While it might seem like a frantic visual experiment, without direction and revelling in its unnarrativeness well enough to make it an artful success,
Pop Skull is in fact a lot tighter than you might expect. Watch it- the performances from the central three figures of Daniel (
Lane Hughes), Jeff (
Brandon Carroll) and Morgan (
Hannah Hughes) are all excellent, particularly
Lane Hughes, who gives Daniel a believable and crucially likeable slant which makes his final descent even more jarring. The direction also, from relative newcomer
Adam Wingard means the difference between a mish-mash of visual ideas, interspersed with some pleasant blood and guts additions, and a little artistic gem with a proper personality of its own.
Pop Skull is available to buy on DVD now.