DVD Review: WHERE THE DEAD GO TO DIE (2011)

WHERE THE DEAD GO TO DIE (2011) 

Label: Unearthed Films 
Region Code: 0 NTSC
Rating: Unrated
Aspect Ratio: 16:9 Widescreen (1:85:1)
Audio: English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound, 2.0
Director: Jimmy ScreamerClauz
Cast: Ruby LaRocca, Brandon Slagle, Joey Smack, Victor Bonacore, Joshua Michael Greene, Linnea Quigley

Synopsis: WHERE THE DEAD GO TO DIE revolves around a troubled group of children living on the same block. They are haunted by a talking dog named Labby who brings them on surreal hell-rides between different dimensions and time periods. On the night of a lunar eclipse he informs Tommy about the devil fetus living inside his mother. The same night he attempts to help Ralph court the girl across the street, who is an unwilling participant in her father's child porn tape trading ring. Add in a memory stealing junkie living inside an abandoned church and you have 93 minutes of pure mind melting insanity!

The Film: Jimmy Screamerclauz's animated feature WHERE THE DEAD GO TO DIE is an animated film using the XBOX Kinect motion capture capabilities and this has gotta be the most fucked-up thing the XBOX has ever been associated with. The animation is pretty interesting at times if a bit uneven, it's got the aesthetic of a Satanic clip art collage brought to life, weird and macabre and depressing as shit - definitely not the feel good film of the summer, this one is a spiritual vivisection from start to finish. 

The stories are just blasphemous nuggets of demented naughtiness beginning with "Tainted Milk" where a boy named Tommy is convinced by a Satanic demon-voiced Labrador retriever named "Labby" that the child growing inside his mother's womb is demon spawn and must be destroyed. Tommy is an annoying character, and Labby is a glowing red-eyed hound from Hell who spins a yarn to Tommy about tainted breast milk and shadowmen that inhabit the unborn fetuses of the world, it's weird demented stuff that's just twisted, interesting but not for the easily offended. The segment climaxes with the hound chewing the unborn fetus from the mother's womb and gnawing off the father's cock in a geyser of poorly animated blood and then there's the visual of Tommy sodomizing the hound while the dog simultaneously penetrates the dead mother's torn-open womb, yeah that's what your in for here folks.  If you can make it through this first tale, you can make it through pretty much anything that comes after. 

The first story had me hooked pretty good but the second story "Liquid Memories" less so, it deals with a disturbed man whom edits his own memories by injecting the brain juice of the recently deceased into his own mind in a way that recalled Karin Hussain's "Vision Stains" segment from THE THEATRE BIZARRE (2010) anthology, this one while visually a drugged-out mind fuck lagged a bit for me, super-creepy are the over sized smiley-faced characters and a legless vet with a penchant for prostitutes, like the one before it's just grotesque but entertaining on a surreal visual level. 

The final segment "The Mask That the Monsters Wear" is definitely the most disturbing  of the tales and that's saying quite a lot given how vile the first two were. This one deals with another young boy named Ralph who is also visited upon my Labby, he has a crush on the young girl next door. You know that there's just no way in Hell this is gonna be a quaint love story, nope ain't gonna happen, no way. Ralph has a twin brother growing out the side of his face and the young girl's father is exploiting his daughter for his child porn tape trading ring, so offensive and gut-churning - child porn is just disgusting on every level and pretty humorless but somehow ScreamerClauz manages to squeeze some perverse humor out of this tragedy which is probably more a poor reflection on what I find entertaining, huh?

While I was not quite won over by the motion capture animation or some of the voice acting which was at times juvenile and quite terrible I have to give it up to ScreamerClauz for just how balls deep he was  willing to go with this, unlike anything I have ever seen before, a unique and twisted vision of depravity. 

DVD:The film is presented in anamorphic widescreen and looks good, as good as it cam - not a fan of the animation honestly but this looks as intended. The two audio options include an English Dolby Digital 2.0 and 5.1 Surround Sound, both are strong though the 5.1 does flesh out the sound field a bit.

Special features include trailers, deleted footage montage, the short film ICE CREAM SUNDAY, and two behind the scenes featurettes, one of 'em Recording Liquid Memories featuring scream queen Linnea Quigley (RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD) recording a few of her line readings from the film plus some impromptu interview performed by Jimmy ScreamerClauz as she talks about merchandising her body parts, burying her hair at Janis Joplin's grave, some strange interview situations and just generally reminding viewers that alcohol does a number on your looks, what happened to Linnea, damn. ScreamerClauz's audio commentary is quite an interesting listen detailing the ramshackle assembly of the film, worth a listen if you enjoyed the film, hearing him talk about somethings being to filthy and weird for inclusion was quite amusing considering what made it into the film.

Special Features: 
- Commentary Track with Jimmy ScreamerClauz
- Deleted Footage Montage (2:49) 
- Recording Liquid Memories (18:48)
- Kinect Motion Capture Madness (4:21)
- TNI Tour Promo Cartoon
- Ice Cream Sunday Short Film w/ Commentary (17:55)

Verdict: A depressing and fucked-up nugget of lo-fi animation and mind bending acid-fueled depravity that's bound to test the limits of where you're willing to go. It's not an easy meal to digest, you'll be a bit nauseous afterward and probably disgusted with yourself for sitting through it, pretty sure that's what Jimmy Screamerclauz had in mind when he assembled this blasphemous slice of perversity. Honestly not a film that's gonna get a lot of replay unless I wanna shock a few jaded friends but definitely a film that if you enjoy shocking, fucked-up cinema you just gotta see, an orgy of vile  filth for the depraved. 3 Outta 5