With Halloween, Christmas, Friday the 13th and Valentine’s Day already claiming their own horror films, it was only a matter of time until Earth Day got its own slasher flick, except this one isn’t live action. In the spirit of Todd Haynes’s “Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story”, the events of Earth Day are acted out with Barbie and Ken dolls. A Vanilla Ice and Mr. T doll even drop in to join the fandango.
The set-up for this short follows the basic formula of most slasher films. It opens with a lusting couple getting killed by an unseen assailant. We then cut to a bunch of kids getting together for some reason or another. In this case, they’re gathering at a lake on Earth Day weekend. While skinny dipping, cooking wienies and playing grab a*s, our teen dolls are killed off one by one.
An entertaining idea, but unfortunately the filmmakers depend on the whole doll thing to carry the film throughout its 17 minute length. Being that comedy was the main goal here, the script could’ve used a good punching up with a few jokes. Good jokes. Even if Mark Hamill is delivering the lines, there should be something interesting for him and the rest of the voice actors to say.
Still, even if this short isn’t the sharpest written piece, what keeps it from drowning in a pool of boredom are the cool little settings that the dolls are acting in. This isn’t a bunch of kids playing around with their action figures in the sand box. There’s actually a mini lake, a mini cabin, even a mini shower room in this thing. I gotta give propers for the effort.
