Terror Toons
By John Oak Dalton • Feb 25th, 2004 • Category: HorrorSatan decides to get into DVD distribution (and there are probably some microcinema producers who wonder if he already was) with a grisly cartoon series called “Terror Toons,” and it’s up to the always-game Beverly Lynne to try to stop his creations from leaping from the screen into reality.
Joe Castro’s Terror Toons answers the question of what a movie directed by Tim Burton and scripted by Herschell Gordon Lewis might look like. Candy-colored, childlike production design is offset with some very gory spatter, creating an unusual look and an original feature.
Joe Castro really knocks one out of the park creatively, with budget-busting production design, costuming, and especially special effects; as well as an offbeat script that features strip ouija, a drag-queen mother, a trip to Hell, and a character spontaneously morphing into a superhero, among other puzzling plot devices.
But where Terror Toons suceeds visually, it fails thematically. A downbeat ending and repeated excessive gore is not only unsettling but seems to be at odds with the lighter tone of the rest of the feature. I believe viewers who would admire the challenging visuals would find the unrelenting gore unpalatable, and gorehounds might find the unusual storytelling a bit head-scratching. Terror Toons seesaws between two extremes, and only somewhat succeeds.
But Joe Castro’s Terror Toons earns kudos for fresh ideas, ambitious production design, and sharp special effects, elements rarely seen at the microcinema level.
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John Oak Dalton is a Community Television Station Manager by day, and a DIY acolyte by night. In the 80s he made Super-8 movies and his own basement mix tapes. In the 90s he hosted a cable-access show and made his own zines and minicomics. In the 21st Century he began working with grassroots video and microcinema and writing b-movies, and has more than a dozen projects on the shelf, on screen, in development, or in production.
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