Reviewed by Adam Stephen Kelly
Stars The voice of David Lynch | Written by David Lynch
UK certification 15 | UK RRP £15.99 | Runtime 35 minutes | Directed by David Lynch
Scanbox Entertainment drops the anchor on the UK DVD release of cult favourite David Lynch’s animated comedy web series, DumbLand.
Originally produced as free content for his website back in 2002, David Lynch takes on the helms of, not only writer and director as you might expect, but also animator, actor and composer, to create what is quite simply one of the most bizarre and warped episodic series I have ever seen. Eight fully Flash-animated episodes follow the crudely drawn and totally unpredictable exploits of Randy, an ogre of a man with three teeth and a mouth that is permanently agape, as seemingly his day-to-day life unfolds, which includes exploits such as spousal abuse, being taunted by musical ants, having a one-armed neighbour who does the unthinkable to ducks, a wife who constantly shrieks like a banshee, and a son who is drawn like a foot-high alien. Weirded out yet? You really should be. Especially when all this randomness is packed into three-and-half minutes an episode.
DumbLand is just that, dumb. Sometimes you find a series or a film that is so bizarre and abstract that it is genius, but I’m afraid this is far from the case with Lynch’s little internet adventure. I haven’t the foggiest idea what Lynch was trying to accomplish with this 35-minute Flash disaster. Presuming it was to entertain, he certainly failed. I can only imagine that it was an experiment gone wrong in the time when Flash skits were so very popular. DumbLand is a mess of line drawings, expletives and violence stuck together in the most pointless and random of scenarios. The brilliant auteur who gave us Blue Velvet and Eraserhead has given none of his voice to DumbLand except its darkness ... and, of course, the actual voices.
With nothing on the DVD but the 35 minutes of episodes and an RRP of £15.99, this is only for the die-hard Lynch fans.