HAIR HIGH

Friday, May 7, 6:00 PM, Charles Theatre 2

Director: Bill Plympton

Cast: Dermot Mulroney, Sarah Silverman, Eric Gilliland, Beverly D’Angelo, Keith Carradine, Martha Plimpton, Tom Noonan, Zak Orth, Hayley Dumond, Ed Begley Jr., Peter Jason, Jay O. Sanders, Michael Showalter, Justin Long, Don Hertzfeldt

Country: U.S.
Year: 2004
Running Time: 79 minutes
Format: Beta SP

 

This new animated feature from Bill Plympton is a gothic high-school comedy with a “Carrie”-like story. Cherri and Rod are the high-school king and queen and they justifiably rule their domain. Spud, the new kid in town, accidentally offends both Cherri and Rod and so is forced to become Cherri’s slave. Naturally, they immediately hate each other, but of course later they fall in love and secretly decide to go to the prom together. On prom night, a rejected Rod forces their car off the road and into the lake. Though Rod initially gets away with murder, exactly one year later, the skeletal remains of Cherri and Spud come back to life and show up at the prom for revenge and their justly-deserved crowns.

Hair High is filled with the kind of sick, twisted and just-plain-odd humor we have come to expect from Bill Plympton over the years. Animated gore and painfully violent, disgusting abuse is portrayed hilariously in a parody of real life in any American high school, and as such, makes this a cartoon that may or may not be suitable for (some) children.

-- Skizz Cyzyk

Presented By: Bill Plympton (director)
Bill Plympton grew up in Oregon and credits its rainy climate with nurturing his drawing skills and imagination. His animated films have brought him many honors, most notably a 1988 Academy Award Best Animation nomination for his film, Your Face. His success with animated short films, which became staples of traveling animation shows and on MTV, allowed him to make his first animated feature, The Tune, in 1992. Since then, he has completed dozens of other short films, commercials & music videos, plus two live-action features (J. Lyle and Guns On The Clackamas) and two more animated features (I Married A Strange Person and Mutant Aliens – the latter screened at the 2001 Maryland Film Festival).