ABNORMAL ATTRACTION ** USA 2018 Dir: Michael Leavy. 107 mins
A colourful but increasingly strained hybrid of whimsy, juvenile humour, heavy handed social commentary and cartoonish gore, this unfolds in an alternate U.S.A. where fantasy creatures live alongside humans, the leader is named President Shump and there are the expected tensions alongside campaigns for non-human rights. Three inter-connected stories are established via an early insight into the assorted “abnormals” attending Bruce Davison’s AA (Abnormal Attraction) meeting.
The large cast of characters includes sexy Melanie Iglesias lusting after the little asses of leprechauns; a horny dude who has spent his life yanking out his own teeth in a bid to capture a hot incarnation of The Tooth Fairy (instead he gets Ron Jeremy in a tutu); a peeping Tom perving over his vampire neighbour; and a bald guy whose endless quest for hair leads to falling in lust with The Missing Link. The episodic set up is peppered with cameos and walk-on creatures: an eager to please Yeti ice cream man, mermaids, Gilbert Gottfried as a Pigman and “Boogeyman” Malcolm McDowell (with PAN’S LABYRINTH-inspired eyeballs in the palms of his hands) overseeing Camp Morning Wood, where our hero is accused and captured as a “monster masher” (having sexual desire for non-humans). There are occasional laughs: Tyler Mane is a downbeat Cyclops on anti-depressants after marrying an ill-fated tree, and there’s a Frankenstein Monster frustrated by humankind’s constant confusion between his name and that of his creator. Alas, most of the jokes are predictable and ham-handed: it’s a movie unable to resist the opportunity for a “Rumple’s foreskin” gag. An impressive cast seem to be having fun with it, though the material is stretched perilously thin at this length, with ill-placed attempts at a sentimental “We’re all God’s creatures” message. The script’s adolescent-level of humour grows tired quickly – particularly with a succession of upskirt “jokes” and unworkable gags about leaky assholes.
Review by Steven West