Pop Skull
Starring: Lane Hughes, Brandon Carroll, Hannah Hughes
Writers: E.L. Katz, Adam Wingard, Lane Hughes
Director: Adam Wingard
****Light Spoilers****
In order to alleviate the pain of a severed relationship, Daniel resorts to eating various pills and tripping off of cough medicine. This opens a door, making it impossible to differentiate between reality and the darkest areas of his psyche.
Confession time! I used to love LSD. I used to love eating mushrooms. I never did the Robo-Trip thing with cough medicine, nor was I a big pill popper, but I can certainly relate to the hallucinogenic aspect of this film. Adam Wingard and Lane Hughes indeed Robo-Tripped in preparation for making this movie, and in between filming they would watch movies like The Blob and Irreversible while in their impaired state. Hah, I can relate to that, too. That's all I wanted to do when I was out of my mind... watch movies. My friends would want to go to the park, airport, anywhere but stay confined in a room. Me? I'd just rather be behind closed doors watching a stack of favorite VHS tapes or turn on HBO and never change the channel... loving on the element of surprise. I could never do that now, not even shrooms. I feel like I'd have a fucking heart attack or something. As long as Wingard is making movies there's really no need for psychotropic drugs.
Pop Skull is visual mind rape right from the start, where a caution for people with epilepsy is displayed. After about 15 seconds, the big, red “WARNING” text slides diagonally down the screen behind the white lettering. At that point your trip has kicked in. The movie works strongly off of color, with high contrast white flashing between each frame. There's also multiple sequences --sometimes up to 4 different scenes-- shown through quick framing; sometimes black and white, sometimes sideways, sometimes flashbacks/flash-forwards. The direction is pretty hard to describe unless you actually see it or if you have been in an other-worldly state of mind before, but it's a pretty accurate depiction of hallucination as far as I'm concerned.
Perhaps more incredible than the visual style of Pop Skull is that the story was improvised, sometimes right before scenes were shot. Adam Wingard and Lane Hughes worked off of a minimal outline from E.L. Katz and basically just ran with it. It's a pretty outstanding achievement from that stance, because the main themes are very true to life. It's all about the pains of a breakup that resort to the drug intake; I'm not talking a 2 to 4 week dating game that broke your heart when you got dumped, I mean your first real relationship that knocks you on your ass when it's over. The first person you were with that had you convinced the love would last forever. When something like that ends, it's some hard hitting shit; it's hard to sleep, hard to eat, it's just ultimately hard to live. You don't know what to do with yourself and it feels like things will never get better. And this kind of hurt can lead someone in the wrong direction, getting involved with things that are said to help forget. In comes the pill popping and the Robo-Tripping.
Adam Wingard had previously tried to make this film using his own aftermath of a breakup but hated the final product and threw it out. Then he made Home Sick and felt more comfortable with being a director. About at the same time he met Lane Hughes, who himself had just came out of a bad ending relationship. Wingard thought it best for the story to tell itself through his friend. Ultimately it's a bit exaggerated. On the commentary they both state that the events in Pop Skull are similar to things they went through (some scenes completely true, such as the birthday gift scene), but amped up times ten for a more cold, supernatural experience.
On the acting front, it's pretty much all Lane Hughes, giving a damn realistic performance as Daniel. He also does a heavy amount of narration in the film, which makes his execution considerably more admirable given that it was improvised. Brandon Carroll (Home Sick) plays Jeff, a life long best friend of Daniel, and this is also a very real to life character. Going back to the whole breakup issue, everyone has that one comrade that tries to see you through the hardships of sorrow, and this is who Jeff is. Carroll gives off the “There's more fish in the sea” pep talk, and really excels in said scene. These two are great together in A Horrible Way to Die, but they have more to do here. Hannah Hughes (no relation to Lane) portrays Morgan, the goth-metal girlfriend of Jeff. She does some solid acting in a small supporting role and wears a Goosebumps shirt, so that made me happy enough.
This movie was made for under $3000, so there shouldn't be any complaints against its lack of bloodletting. It's not really that kind of film anyway; I actually have a difficult time labeling it straight up horror, though, there are elements. Once Daniel starts tripping he sees beings hiding in shadows, behind curtains, outside the front door, etc... most of it's shown in quick and dark sequences. Some of these scenes are pretty jump inducing, helped by a music soundtrack that creeps from quiet to bass blasting with no warning. Just don't be expecting anything at all like Home Sick. With that being said, I really appreciate Wingard's diversity.
I have a problem with the way Pop Skull ends. The very last scene just leaves me unfulfilled. Not because it's sloppy or seems tacked on, it just seems like it ends too early. But I guess there was only so far to go with a story that's nearly all thought up during filming. While I would say it's my least favorite Adam Wingard movie, I in no way dislike it. It's also impossible for me to not give high praise to Wingard for dishing out such a visual treat --on a low budget-- and to Lane Hughes for his authentic lost soul performance.
