Dead Pet

Dead Pet is a hilarious independent comedy that ranks up there with Clerks on my top ten independant films.

Here's the deal: Jake (writer-director of the film Kevin Cotteleer) is a college kid who comes home to find his parents have spent his college on their poodle Miko. He moves out, and one of his friends accidentally kills Miko while trying to sorta make-out with his girlfriend. Much chaos ensues, featuring weird situations such as a fight in the lawn between two girls, a cutlery sales industry that is like a cult where Jake gets his job (providing for the funniest scenes in the film), his friends begin to doubt him, activists sit outside his yard thinking he killed the dog screaming "bring Jake to justice! justice for Miko!" and all sorts of other weird, very indie-film-esque situations with sharply written dialogue an well-done cinema antics.

Dead Pet is definetly worth checking out if you dig on funny, witty, quirky, weird, and sorta plotless films where characters deteriorate in a comedic way.

I'm a fan of "Savage" Steve Holland's "Better Off Dead" and this film is similar not because of plot, but instead for the assortment of humorous and bizarre characters and groups assembled. Some of these include "cultist" cutlery salesfolks, parents who care more about their dog than their son and activists demanding justice for a dead animal. Also, just as in BOD, the protagonist comes across as a "normal" guy who is stunned and confused by the antics of those in his life.

With a larger budget, some minor re-tooling of the script and a cast of professional actors, I could see the film having quite a bit of success in wider release.

Jake Thompson returns home for summer to find out that his parents have spent his college trust fund on the family pet poodle Miko. I did not know a family could generate a college fund-enough to educate a child at Harvard-from collecting old cans.

How Jake could get into Harvard one will never know. How Jake attracts two women while swilling beer in a kiddie pool is more unfathomable.

But all of this is okay because Jake lives in an alternate reality not accessible without ingesting heavy amounts of narcotics.

Take this movie as a random melange of vignettes, all unrelated to one another and the movies captures amusing oddities of american trailer park charaters-I especially liked the knife loving Shears'-and equally clueless suburbirats.

Overall this movie is better than no movie, but almost any other would be better.

The box said "Funnier than 'Something About Mary!'" It must have been one of those fictional newspaper critics because only a fictional character would confuse this stinker with something that's actually entertaining. The acting is bad, the dialog is worse. The only scene that's even moderately funny involves a parody of the cutco knife marketing world, but this scene hardly saves the movie. I love independent films. This isn't even close to what I expect from a good independent film, I want to know who got bribed to get this turkey into the Hollywood video. And I want my five dollars back.

Dead Pet is the kind of movie that a huge video store will have one copy of, if that. It was clearly made on a non-existent budget and, if we are to believe the director's (or is that producer's?) introduction, shot in less than two weeks. Depending on which way you swing, those reasons alone are justification enough for dismissing or embracing it. I embrace it.

There is nothing particularly special about the plot. It starts in the middle and ends in the middle, with little backstory and no clear visions of the future. But you've seen the film or read the synopsis, so the plot is in your hands already. The real meat of the film is in it's characters. Each character has his or her own specific traits, and most of the actors bring them to life wonderfully. Jake is short tempered, but non-threatening. Willy is a shameless suck-up with a superiority complex. Eric obviously couldn't cut it as a real professional, so he throws himself completely into a very menial job. The Dukester... well, the Dukester is the Dukester.

It seems reasonable to worry that such pigeonholed players would become tired towards the tail end of the movie, but someone thought ahead. The film is less than eighty minutes long. At first I felt a bit cheated, but on repeated viewings I have come to believe that this is the perfect length. A great deal of wit is crammed into the picture as it stands. Adding more footage would be stretching it a bit.

I really hate to compare this film to Clerks, as they are from two different worlds. What they do have in common, however, is that their appeal is entirely in the dialog. Nothing of importance happens through the course of the film, yet you stay interested because the characters are saying the things you've always wanted to say. It's roughly the same theory with Dead Pet.