genre mishmash of food-court proportions, Allan Moyle’s latest cinematic venture, the Willem Wennekers-penned Weirdsville, mixes a heroin film, Satanist romp, stoner-buddy journey, and caper flick, thus creating a Frankenstein-style amalgam replete with overt flaws and surprising virtues. Attempting to circumvent genre trappings by creating a tapestry of familiar types, it manages to survive and, occasionally, thrive on its disparateness. However, when it fails, it does so blatantly and cloyingly.

Moyle’s most successful films – both critically and economically - have focused on adolescent dissidence and maturation (Pump Up the Volume, Empire Records, and New Waterford Girl); Weirdsville fits into that section of his canon as an addendum; it’s an exploration of prolonged listlessness as it collides with the conclusion of youth. Of course, as with most films that prominently feature born-again Satanists battling an army of little people (is that a genre?), it’s thankfully neither overwrought nor particularly philosophical.

That said, two motifs dominate Weirdsville’s symbolic landscape. First, a recurring drugged-fuelled hallucination finds a protagonist skating barefoot (i.e. floating) along rural roads. It is fitting in both its beauty and implausibility. Secondly, a doomed mouse struggles to claw out of a toilet, drowns (sorry, but it happens early on), and reappears in a speaking roll. Stripping away dense layering of genre set-pieces ironically leads to a film about the inescapability of reality and the listless’s capacity for redemption. Also, Matt Frewer gets a giant icicle lodged in his brain.