Lucky (2002) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski)

This is one weird-ass independent no-budget movie.

On the surface, it seems to be about this: a cartoon writer with writers' block is degenerating into an alcoholic hermit. One night, on a beer run, he runs over a dog. Since he is a lonely man, is perpetually drunk, and is riddled with guilt, he brings the dog home, hoping to nurse him to health. The dog is dead, but that doesn't stop the guy from keeping him around as a pet for a few weeks.

Finally, he decides to bury the dog, but it comes back from the dead, and starts to haunt him, gradually controlling him completely, dictating his every thought. The dog is a bloodthirsty little fella, and has soon turned the writer into a serial torturer and murderer. That's the bad news. The good news is that the dog is a much better writer than the man ever was, so his writers' block is soon cured, and the quality of his work takes a quantum leap upward.

Of course, as you may have guessed, the film may not really be about this. It may just be about a lonely, failed, insane writer who imagined all the events in the film, or it may include some real events embellished by his insane imagination. Frankly, I'm not sure what happened and what didn't. Some things were obviously imaginary, others not. 

It doesn't matter how you interpret it, because it's actually a fairly entertaining little black comedy. The lead actor, who is on screen virtually every minute, is quite competent, kind of a cross between Kevin Spacey and ol' Tony Soprano in the general category of soft-looking, soft-spoken guys who may be gentle for a while, then snap into violence, or who may just be completely loony. The writer is Stephen Sustaric, who has worked on some of the best comedy shows of the past 30 years, including cartoons. (Yipes! Is it autobiographical? Does he also have bodies buried in his back yard? Does he want to?).

Although production values are not lush, to say the least, it seems that one good writer and one good actor in a virtual soliloquy can produce a strangely engaging film, and this one has a really black sense of humor. I laughed out loud at some of the discussions between the writer and his (presumably imaginary) torture victims, and at the absurdity of some of the women he dated before he simply decided to get into that whole kidnap and torture thing.

A solid genre offering, at least for you guys who like something far from the beaten path. Unfortunately, the DVD quality is poor, with motion blur throughout.