THE DWARVES MUST BE CRAZY (2016 - Thai)

Studio:       Sahamongkol Film International
Director:    Bhin Banloerit
Writer:       Bhin Banloerit
Producer:  Semsak Techaratanaprasert, Bhin Banloerit
Stars:     Ket SaiCharoen, Prachak Naeophila, Phromlikhit Kraratphet, Chaiphon Saksi, Khomchit Taikhiri, Worawan Kanchon, Boonyant Jankaew, Aem Hathairat

Review Score:

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Summary:

A band of jungle-dwelling dwarves fights to save their village when some of their tribe is transformed into disembodied heads.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

When their animal hunt is unsuccessful, several members of a jungle-dwelling dwarf tribe resort to eating strange glowing worms found on an anthill. After returning to their village, the dwarves who ate the worms later transform into ravenous creatures when their heads separate from their bodies and begin floating with intestines still attached.

The village chief consults local monks for wisdom regarding the heads. It is revealed that the orange-glowing female heads are called kra-sue and live inside nests built in the trees. Green-glowing male heads are called kra-soo and dwell in holes in the ground.

Over the course of combating the creatures, a group of five dwarves visits a cave-dwelling hermit. The hermit warns that anyone bitten by a kra-sue or kra-soo will become one. All of the kra-sue and kra-soo must be banished completely or else the entire village will eventually be transformed.

Several kra-sue and kra-soo are successfully destroyed. While attempting to uncover a kra-soo in a hole, the five friends uncover a large python, prompting them to hide in a tree. After an encounter with a village woman who pisses herself upon sight of the snake, the quintet escapes the tree by tying their loincloths together and climbing down.

Villagers assemble to discuss what to do next. Hoo Hee confronts his beloved girlfriend Wu Wee, who is now a kra-sue, outside the hut. The villagers are horrified when winged batmen suddenly attack the remaining heads. Left as the last remaining kra-sue, Wu Wee tells Hoo Hee that he must eat a bug at the anthill and become a kra-soo in order to defeat the batmen.

Hoo Hee elects to go to the anthill alone. However, his four friends volunteer to sacrifice themselves at his side and become kra-soo as well.

Pursued by batmen on their way to the anthill, Tu Mee ends up captured. The other four dwarves make it to the anthill and eat glowing orange bugs.

When they wake the next morning without having transformed, the dwarves realize they ate the wrong bugs. As they prepare to eat green bugs instead, the hermit suddenly arrives and stops them.

The hermit explains that they don’t need to become kra-soo to defeat the batmen. Because the batmen are nocturnal and fear daylight, the dwarves only need to find the creatures and fight them before night falls.

The hermit leads the four dwarves to a cave where they find Tu Mee held captive. After Tu Mee is rescued, the dwarves tie vines to two sleeping batmen and pull them into the daylight where they disintegrate.

The dwarves do the same to the sleeping batmen leader. However, a cloud covers the sun, allowing the batman boss to briefly recover and threaten the dwarves. Sunlight suddenly returns. The dwarves take turns stomping the batman leader until light finally destroys him.

The dwarves return to the remaining nest in the forest to find Wu Wee. Unexpectedly, Wu Wee attacks the dwarf inspecting her nest as the others look on in horror, realizing that the threat is far from over.

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Review:

There is a school of thought in film criticism that a reviewer should judge a movie based on what it wants to be rather than what the reviewer thinks the movie should be.  If that is the chief criteria for grading, then “The Dwarves Must Be Crazy” is a grand slam success at being the most outrageously bonkers comedy/horror hybrid to ever feature disembodied heads tormenting diminutive hut-dwellers, plentiful toilet humor, and more “whoop, zip, blort!” sound effects than an entire season of “Animaniacs,” exactly as it undoubtedly intended.

Of course, the problem with this line of thinking is that it fails to fault a film for lacking coherence or running flatulence jokes into the ground, since “The Dwarves Must Be Crazy” never means to make straight sense or aim its irreverence above the belt.  You see, I think a movie where a bumbling jungle tribe eats glowing worms to become butt-licking beasts battling winged batmen should be as creative with its gags as it is about its premise.  But the bulk of “The Dwarves Must Be Crazy” is neither as inventive nor as interesting as its setup might imply, leaving its lasting entertainment value to shiver and shake in the cold.

The only thing this Thailand tribe of pint-sized people is worse at than catching pigs is knowing which forest insects they shouldn’t eat.  Desperate for food since their hunting skills aren’t up to snuff, several dwarves say, “what’s the worst that can happen?” and pop a few iridescent bugs in their mouths.  Not long after, those dwarves find their heads painfully pulling away from their bodies.  Out come their internal organs, still attached at the neck, as those heads turn feral and float way into the night.

With a penchant for eating asses at inopportune times, the floating heads, called kra-sue for females and kra-soo for males, become a terrible nuisance.  Five friends end up at the forefront of efforts to combat the creatures.  Most of their mini-adventures lead to nothing more momentous than slapping a scrotum underwater or literally eating sh*t from a kra-sue nest.  But an encounter with a hermit and sage wisdom from scatterbrained monks gets the ball rolling on how they might return their village to normal before it is too late.

It should be plainly obvious that “The Dwarves Must Be Crazy” belongs to an unusually bizarre breed of maverick midnight movie.  You’d think that a film made to look and sound like a live-action cartoon might guarantee a raucously rip-roaring good time.  Except deliberately outlandish sound design and subpar visuals become so obnoxiously grating, and redundant jokes run so many circles around themselves, that the flick’s fun factor is prevented from fulfilling its promise.

The music score sounds as if The Muppets composed background beats for a Margaritaville bar.  And I don’t mean Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem.  I’m talking random socks with hands up their cabooses banging on xylophones, maracas, and banjos.  If nothing else, the cacophony of craziness is in keeping with the slide whistle “booowheeeepppp!” noises and bells accompanying hand motions and various slapstick pratfalls.

It might be unfair to speculate since everyone speaks Thai and I’m only reading dialogue through subtitles.  But I’m going to guess that based on rigidly stiff deliveries, actors were hired with an eye for appearance over ability.  Other than the core quintet, it’s hard to even tell who the movie wants to push to the front, what with how many characters come and go weighed against how many actually become memorable.

If “The Dwarves Must Be Crazy” was in English with an American cast, it’s the kind of production you might see from Full Moon.  Floating heads and gargoyle men looking like 2D cutouts animated against a 1980s green screen would be right at home in a crossover sequel pitted against Gingerdead Man or Evil Bong.

You’ve definitely never seen anything quite like “The Dwarves Must Be Crazy.”  Yet even a tasteless sense of humor has only so much tolerance for comedy coming exclusively from farts, diarrhea, taking dumps, and watching a dwarf woman literally piss herself at the sight of a giant snake.  No amount of spontaneous song and dance routines can save stale silliness from fighting directly against the desire to get more enjoyment out of the insanity than its delivery actually allows.

Looking to tie this last paragraph to the first, I’m reminded of Roger Ebert’s review for “The Manson Family.”  He was as unsure of how to evaluate a brutally psychedelic true crime thriller against his personal tastes as I am in how to impartially encapsulate this weirdo experience.  Ebert said, “do I give (the movie) four stars because it does what it does so successfully and uncompromisingly, or do I give it zero stars, for the same reason?  I will settle on three, because it is remarkable enough that I do not want to dismiss it.  That doesn’t mean I think you should see it.”  This sentiment summarizes my thoughts on “The Dwarves Must Be Crazy” exactly.

NOTE: The film's Thai title is "Krause Krung Khon."

Review Score:  60

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