In my review for Hellboy: Sword of Storms, I commented that I would've enjoyed the animated exploits of Mike Mignola's paranormal secret agent from Hell (literally this time) moreso had the animation resembled Mignola's unique artistic style. Little did I realize that someone else had already done just that... and to my utter fucking shock, it was Sci-Fi Channel Originals... a production company whose name, translated from the ancient Cherokee dialects, roughly translates into "they whose movies would hurt less were they consumed in videocassette form rather than viewed". The biggest surprise? It actually doesn't suck!
Screw-On Head (Paul Giamatti) is the man machine secret agent who answers to president Abraham Lincoln circa the 1860s. When matters of national importance threatening the Union are outside the threshold of human reason, Honest Abe calls in Agent Head and his sidekicks/servants Mr. Groin (the Alfred to his Bruce Wayne, voiced by Patton Oswalt) and Mr. Dog... the latter of which is actually a re-animated dog. Forged with extensive knowledge in the areas of the supernatural and wielding his various robot bodies with which he can stomp, stake and shoot up evil, nefarious historical figures have no chance againsy the Amazing Screw-On Head! Speaking of which, in this pilot episode (based on the graphic novel of the same name), Screwy's arch-nemesis and former butler, Emperor Zombie (David Hyde Pierce), and his minions (an old lady, a werewolf and a crown wearing monkey brandishing a machine gun) have kidnapped Professor Fruen; senior historian of the Museum of Dangerous Books and Papers. Fruen's the only man who can translate the fabled Kalakistan Fragment; a document written on goat hide that details the exploits and secrets of Gung the Destroyer (not to be confused with Conan the Destroyer, as we are sans Kareem Abdul-Jaffar and Grace Jones here), who was told to have nearly conquered the Earth itself back in 9632 BC using a mystical jewel. You can figure out where EZ-E's going with this...
To find Zombo's secret lair, SoH and the Groinmeister nab Screw's ex-turned-Emperor Zombie's-vampire-henchgirlfriend Patience (Molly Shannon) for interogation. Meanwhile, the Emperor uses his fiendish intellect to create a super bong and smoke Professor Fruen's essence, thus absorbing everything he knows... and maybe a few doses of THC with any luck. Both sides come to blows at the site of Gung's tomb (in the Mississippi River, go figure), where the former conqueror's great treasure is revealed to be a demigod trapped inside a pocket dimension held within a turnip. Ah yes, the turnip, nature's great, uhm, containment unit... of stuff.
The demigod is released (looking something like a cross between a giant frog and an iguana, only painted crimson), the big climax plays out and when it's all said and done, it's another day saved thanks to the Amazing Screw-On Head! The ressurected corpse of Gung is appointed the US Representative of the Paleolithic Era and, to keep their exploration of the other evils that may be lurking in the lands to the West of the Mississip a secret from those pricks in the Confederacy, Lincoln initiates the Homestead Act... and here I've been thinking that whole thing was just America's classic imperialist mindset at work. The things you learn when watching cartoons.
If there was only enough money in a coffer somewhere to fund either an animated Hellboy series or an animated Screw-On Head series, I would elect to get me 2000 Double Quarter Pounders and a pancreas transplant... but when that was denied me, I would have to throw my hat (it's really more like one of those big-ass viking helmets with the horns attached so I can gore those roving bands of Scientology recruiters that hang out around Time Square) into the corner of El Screw. The characters and the obscene events surrounding them are classic Mignola and I dare say even better than his flagship hero Hellboy and his pals in the BPRD. The casting on this pilot was perfect. I don't mean the over-used and exagerated "perfect" that so many people like to throw around all willy-nilly for so many things that need obvious work, like their kids' stupid macaroni art projects or their relationships with their significant others that are so obviously tearing apart at the seams to everyone but themselves, I mean the kind of perfect that really doesn't need any further work. Shit, I'd watched a show that centered around Emperor Zombie making pompous dick and fart jokes for 30 minutes every week as long as he was voiced by David Hyde Pierce and it was done by the same genius art team at work here! I've always loved Mignola's skewed take on the comic medium (provided he inks as well as pencils) and the fact that somebody finally put money into the idea of making it the basis for an animation project fills me both with a sense of great satisfaction and a slight annoyance of "It's about fucking time!".
"The Amazing Screw-On Head: the Series". Make it happen Sci-Fi Channel, so you can start your long road to penance for all the shitty Bruce Campbell, Jeffrey Combs and Lance Henriksen z-grade shitstorms you've been pinching out on us the last few years! I'm literally going into slight tremors and minor panic attacks just thinking about the two Pumpkinhead sequels they're pointing at us like a loaded double-barrel of cinemasochism... and not the fun kind!
The Moral of the Story: "All really intelligent people should be cremated for reasons of national security".
Screen Shots______________
There's something wrong with the friggin' DVD that I was using for this review and it won't play on my computer. As such, instead of posting the screen shots I normally would, how about you just watch the whole damn show here, courtesy of YouTube... you know, in case someone gets the idea to try and sue me or something... dick bag.
DVD Xtras: A surprisingly content inclusive disc for this less-than-30 minute feature, handing us a running commentary track with the director and writer (one sounds like a total dork while the other leans more toward the stoner crowd); trailers for a couple of other animated features from Lionsgate (the original "
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" cartoons,
The Invincible Iron Man and, uggh,
Happily Never After); a storyboard comparison for one scene (which I always find nauseatingly fucking pointless unless you plan on becoming a storyboard artist at some point in your life); and a featurette on the making of the pilot that includes segments with Mike Mignola discussing how he came up with the characters and some behind-the-scenes stuff on the creation of the animation and the recording of the voice acting. This lasts nearly as long as the feature itself and makes for a nice little package. I only hope I get to see it all again one day packaged along with "
The Amazing Screw-On Head Season One (of Seven)"...
H.O.P.E.L.E.S.S. Rating: 
- It's a great "take a break" for between party movies around the 15 hour mark to grab everybody's interest and entertain yourselves with rather than forcing yourself to try to find the funny in yet another
Leprechaun sequel. Get it.
If You Liked This Flick, Check Out: Hellboy: Sword of Storms or Wizards
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