DVD : Meet the Hollowheads

Rating: - Brackish
I appreciate the fair warnings about the transfer. I got beat-to-the-punch when someone else stole the only VHS copy I knew of, from the Wherehouse in the late eighties. So, when I happened upon the Laserdisc I added it to my collection of Champagne for Caesar and Susan Slept Here. They seemingly could also only be had in this format, which I'm now grateful for having excellent transfers of all three movies. With such excellent sources as these Laserdiscs, you wonder what could be the problem with making a decent DVD. Champagne for Caesar is also a lousy DVD transfer but it doesn't cost 3.98, it's 22.99.

Well, that being said, this is a marvelous movie. Everyone in it is wonderful though you'd almost have to say this was written expressly for Richard Portnow and John Glover, two extraordinarily gifted and undervalued character actors. Portnow is riotous as Glover's (Hollowhead's) boss Mr. Crabneck. What a name. No one but Glover could play Henry Hollowhead, the Ozzie Nelson of the future. A future where, like The Jetsons world being dominated by sprockets, Henry's world is ruled by and actually comes to the Hollowheads through tubes. Henry started as a lowly reamer and has by hard work and some creative tubing of his own climbed up to lower middle management (probably the equivalent of the lower G.I. tract) and raised up an average family perfectly suited for this tubular world. How well Henry entertains Mr. Crabneck as a dinner guest seems to be the determining factor in Henry's next upward movement. This thing is really wild. My favorite parts are the early Crabneck behavior toward the younger son and the provocative Julliette Lewis and what a reamer wears and does.

There were a bunch of these quirky, inventive family comedies around at this time. Mom and Dad Save the World and Stay Tuned are two pretty cute ones. Terror Vision and The Applegates were more like The Hollowheads and all three are terrific in the same way. They're sort of dark, a bit offensive, excellent in concept and execution and very original and oh ya, they're very, very funny.

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Rating: - Wonderfully bizarre cult hit marred by a incredibly poor transfer.
I was a big fan of this movie since I discovered it hidden in a dark corner of a video store. It's wildly inventive, crazy, and stupid (but in a good way)!

Amazon lists this disc at under $4 -- and you sure get what you pay for! The DVD is an ultra-bargain basement release. I knew I was in trouble when I saw the box it came in. A half-thick DVD case with video captures for the box art. Not good! I owned the poster back in college.. why wasn't that used?

It's little more than a DVD dub of the VHS version. Colors are smeary, detail is blurry. The audio is muffled. The tape's tracking is bad in spots. Don't expect normal DVD clarity here!

While it's great that this movie is available on DVD, I just wish a little more effort went into this terrible transfer. Worth buying, though!

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Rating: - "That's the tale of the tube, in one short spurt..."
A charming pop-art nightmare piped-in from another dimension, MEET THE HOLLOWHEADS is an unassuming cult sleeper brimming with wit and imagination. Highly stylized with bold colors and cartoonish sets, this zany satire paints a meticulously-detailed picture of an alternate universe where the world rests upon a literal "edge" of eternal nothingness and essentials are delivered through an elaborate network of underground tubes. The story follows a day in the life of the (seemingly) wholesome Hollowhead clan as they deal with all manner of familial strife, not the least of which is an unexpected visit from Mr. Hollowhead's slimy boss Mr. Crabneck, who wastes no time in coming on to Mrs. Hollowhead and proves harder to kill than Wolfgang Kieling in TORN CURTAIN. The playful juxtaposition of sitcom tropes with unhinged surrealism is both amusing and unsettling. Likable performances all around and endlessly quotable dialogue. Butt Polish, Puenetration Boxes, Splat-Spray Games: every other line is awash in mysterious, mostly unexplained jargon. This will no doubt drive some crazy. This movie is not for them. I thought half the fun was in not knowing exactly what the Hell "Softening Jelly" is. This underappreciated gem of the bizarre deserves a better DVD.

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Rating: - How One Family Survives The Future
A day in the life of the Hollowhead family. The action centers around the father bringing the boss home for dinner. The family is made up of the Father, Mother, young son, teen daughter, and older son.

What makes this movie so quirky is the dystopian society that makes up the setting. Everything comes into the home through tubes run by a giant company that Father works for. Goofy gadgets and strange bio/hybrids make for a visually unique film. The family has been compared to the Bundys but Father is successful (written up in trade journals an #1 at his job), Mom is an excellent cook and homemaker, the youngest son is sort of like Beaver with a Haskel-like friend who gets him in trouble, the daughter is trying to grow up despite restrictions, and the eldest son is a struggling musician.

Many who watch this film will be reminded of Brazil with its dependence on strange technology but this world is harder to grasp. There seems to be no outside, there is an "edge" and the umbilical tubes are central to everything. This is supposed to be a comedy, but the world's lack of reference keeps it from working well. With Brazil we could believe government taking over and being slaves to necessary technology and those that maintain it, but we just can associate with this world.

Still, the acting is quite good with a strong cast (including uncredited Bobcat Goldthwaite as a policeman). It's not really bad, just hard to grasp.

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Rating: - Bizarre Cult Gem
I was wondering if this one would ever come oozing back up from the tubes. Juliette Lewis, John Glover, Bobcat Goldthwait and Anne "Where's the Beef" Ramsey join an ensemble cast in a story about a subterranean society whose lives depend on an infrastructure of tubes. At the center of this tale is the Hollowhead family, consisting of a hard-working dad with hopes of promotion at the job, a sparkly mom who gets food out of a duct in the wall, a young boy who gets amusement picking parasites from the family (dog?) and slingshotting them into a fan, an older sis whose hormones are in overdrive, an older brother who plays an instrument that resembles a cross between an accordion and a rubber chicken, and of course an eyeball plant that lives in the hallway.

Dad is having the boss over for dinner and needs to make an impression for his promotion, so mom gets busy preparing a special dinner for the occasion. Sis has some partying to do with friends that night, and mom reluctantly gives in to letting her feel grown up and using her "Softening Jelly" before going out. Dad's boss proves to be a true predator of a dinner guest, and things get ugly as the evening evolves into a genuine game of primal survival for the HH family. To complicate matters, sis is escorted back home by the police after they bust the party she went to, who claim that these kids tapped a forbidden feed of some choice "Butt Polish". Of course, this being a family offering, all is somehow made right in the end. But not before considerable fluids are spilled ......

Obviously not for everyone, Meet the Hollowheads is a tweaked-out live action cartoon vision of an alternate universe, sort of a Leave It To Beaver drops acid and goes to Jupiter. As such, much of the film is devoted to creating an environment, and does so beautifully, though occasionally at the cost of the story itself. The story, as is, is a simple one and serves more as a vehicle for the spot on performances and extraordinary production values - the makers of this odd work were well aware of its limited appeal, and it is apparent throughout that all involved had great fun doing it. Perfect for those nights when only good, clean, wholesome and extremely warped entertainment will do.