I love Tim Armstrong. As much as some people might say his bands Rancid and The Transplants aren't "true" punk, I've never been one to give the proverbial shit about what other people think. Granted, such a philosophy has caused the occasional legal problem now and then, but it's not like the people at Target have never seen an overweight naked guy playing Guitar Hero before. Up tight assholes. Anyway, Timmy 'Strong is more than just a lead guitarist and vocalist, the man's also a producer of other bands, the head of Hellcat Records, and a once-in-a-while executive producer, score composer, and voice actor for stop-motion musicals about Charles Manson. Only in America boys & girls... and manly girls... and lady-boys... and nondescript hermaphrodites... and self-mutilating folks with nothing remotely resembling human genitalia... Did I leave anyone out? No? Good. I like to try and make my reviews accommodating to all sexes, bi-sexes, and sans sexes. Sexy.

The infamous exploits of Crazy Uncle Chuck and the Spahn Ranch Bunch have been fodder for many a horror and exploitation flick since the high profile slaughter of a pedophile director's pregnant wife and her house guests first shocked the nation and put a bizarre cap on those kwazy '60s, the 40th anniversary of which is coming up in exactly 7 months from the day of this review! Spooky. If nothing else though, you've gotta give it to the movie's writer-director John Roecker for doing something different with the presentation of the same old serial killer story... though he definitely should have done so with a better caliber of voice talent... and a bigger animation budget... and maybe a little more story material...

1060 years into the future (or 386,900 days if that's your preferred measure of time), the Earth's become a desperate marble of shit in the cosmic scheme of things. A solar irradiated wasteland whose surface is nigh uninhabitable thanks to the depleted Ozone Layer, not unlike every post-nuke flick in the last 30 years. Amidst the debris left behind by man's world, as one of the few survivors of the species munches on a sun-baked porcine corpse, he finds a tome all too familiar to fans of the true crime genre: Helter Skelter... or rather, "Healter Skelter" as the paperback's cover actually reads... which sets into motion the movie's slight renaming of the characters (like Charlie Hanson) in its cast, no doubt done not in an effort to protect the names of those involved, but to avoid all manner of legal clusterfucks that could come about as a result, reinforced all the more by the "this was all a work of fiction" disclaimer when it's all over. Anyway, these bleak days ahead are all according to our humble narrator, Tim Armstrong, whose voice, I'm sorry to say, sounds half brain dead without musical accompaniment. Sorry Timmy, you're just not cut out for public speaking. Keeps those vocals on a CD where they belong.

As the production of a group of punks, you can imagine the following comes with a decidedly anti-establishment, pro-Charlie spin to it. For starters, the story's told from the point-of-view of Manson/Hanson bride Hadie Hatkins (Theo Kogan, lady leader of the Lunachicks) as she's being interrogated by the LAPD circa '68. The men questioning her are represented as slimy pig-men with fluid pouring down their faces and around their bulging, coal black eyes. They berate her for not conforming to social norms, for not being an obedient little mindless whelp, and for killing the rich and famous beautiful people that the establishment uses to distract the ignorant masses from the shitty existence they surround themselves with. Hadie proclaims herself and the other members of Chuck Manson's "family" as soldiers in the revolution to open the world's eyes and lead them into Utopia following the inevitable race war to come... and here we are 40 years later with our first black president. Maybe Chucky should've shined his crystal ball a little better before he started issuing death warrants for members of the vapid Tinseltown crowd.

Hadie's tale starts a year prior, when her name was Susan Hatkins. Fresh to the LA jungle, she not only found a job and apartment, but also that typical need for an imaginary friend to give her guidance in life. Having found solace in neither Jesus nor the Buddha, she started taking LSD to help hunt down that big spiritual awakening. Instead she found Charlie Hanson (Billie Joe Armstrong, lead of Green Day and no relation to Tim), a red-eyed psychopath in denim who walked into her place one night at random and proclaimed himself the son of God to her... then proceeded to give her freaky beatnik hallucination sex with his 8ft penis. For anyone who thought Team America involved graphic puppet porn, prepare to have whatever taste you've got left sacrificed into the nearest porcelain altar.

Following his phallus escapades, Chuck won over the impressionable young clay lady with his hypnotic cult leader talk. Feeling her spiritual gas tank no longer running on empty, Hadie paid homage to her new savior and his floppy rubber love dolphin with a "sacrificial handjob" and swore her undying service to him. If nothing else, at least LFDF gives us the lead singer of Green Day saying "sacrificial handjob"... As part of her "rebirth" as a Hansonkateer, Charles gave Susie something every girl grows up dreaming of one day: an alias. Her new AKA? Hadie Mae Klutz. Just in case you needed me to tell you this, here goes: never let a maniacal hippie with delusions of grandeur and more LSD in his blood than plasma name you, your kids, your pets, or any of your stuffed animals. He'll always come up with something that sounds like it came out of the Hooterville phone book.

This leads into Charlie's first song "Mechanical Man", the tune of which sounds like it should be on "Sesame Street" but the words of which make it strictly for the 18 and up crowd. I'd gladly rip a vid of the production and make it available for all to see, but alas the scene has a lot of puppet nudity and puppet intercourse that makes it YouTube unfriendly. If I ever get that burst of inspiration and motivation that I keep praying to the ghost of Jim Jones or the Hanukkah Zombie to bring me one day, I'll make my own video and clip out the naughty bits. Don't hold your breath though... unless you like the buzz that comes with oxygen depletion, in which case knock yourself out *rimshot*. Anyway, until such a time as I can get over this bout of chronic lazy-ass, you can check the song out here instead. Have fun with that.

Along with Charlie and the rest of his Hanson family, Hadie packed up her meager possessions and moved out to Death Valley to set up shop in the dessert like Charlton Heston and his buddies did after they told Pharaoh where to stick his Staff of Ra. Here's a hint: the sun has been known not to shine in said place, but you can't spend 10 minutes in the desert without sand filling it up. During their sojourn amidst the sands, the ladies returned to civilization to dumpster dive for sustenance where they were verbally set upon by the mocking mouth of pregnant actress, eco-terroristic, and upper-class twit Sharon Hate (Kelly Osbourne... ewww) and her dick hungry hairdresser Hay (Davey Havok of AFI... more ewww). This would of course lead to Charlie looking for some revenge on Hate, citing that her new movie, "Valley of the Hogs" was going to be filmed in their own desert and would ruin their beloved life as Spahn Ranch's resident squatters. So, looking to his "four prophets from Liverpool" for inspiration, the White Album tells Charlie to send his faithful to the Hate household and make an example out of the mom-to-be and any other fresh bodies they find there. This will begin his Helter Skelter holy war and put Charlie on the path to being king of the world. I don't know, given the choice between Charles Manson and Leonardo DiCaprio, I'm not sure who I'd rather be stuck with as my king. Manson was a crazy, bloodthirsty, drugged out, child molesting, STD infected fiend, but DiCaprio got his start in Critters 3 and he's a douche ala mode, so not unlike Rip, I find myself torn... ba-dum-bum.

While Hate and her a-hole elitist idiot amigos Hay and Habagail (Asia Argento... just hearing her name makes my "Home of the Whopper" boxers moist) spend their evening on a cocaine binge discussing such relevant topics as getting double-p'ed and whether or not retardation is contagious, Hadie and her fellow "siblings" Hex and Squeaky show up and let themselves in. Their victims-to-be figured the trio were there to partake in one of those fancy Hollywood orgies where everyone has their own baby wipe boy to clean their holes up afterwards, but of course that's not the case as the Hansonites proceeded to maul, mutilate, dismember, and disembowel the self-styled beautiful people until the place looked like an abattoir with shag carpets. Gore covered the floors, the kids finger painted with it on the walls, numerous references to head/dick cheese were made, and they even gave Hate's coke addled baby a premature birth and took him home to meet Uncle Charlie. Aw, it was like one of those Christmas specials where the family's united through a divine holiday miracle, only without all the holiday stuff and with a lot more of the shit that would give grandpa flashbacks to whatever war it was he fought in.

Hate's slaughter didn't have quite the effect that Chuck and his homies were hoping for though. Instead of scaring off the rest of Tinseltown, it inspired a butcher named HaBianca to announce plans to pave over all of Death Valley and turn it into a Sharon Hate memorial parking lot. You can imagine what became of Mister and Missus HaBianca after that... but not before we watch them do a Stan and Helen Roper style back-and-forth for a few minutes so their brutal murders won't seem so unnecessary. Yeah, after listening to an old couple bitch about yeast infections and abortions for 5 minutes, I'd want to sheath a shank in their spleens too. Anyway, after the act the cops picked up the family members and it was time for their guest appearance on "L.A. Law"... a show that wouldn't come into existence for another 15 or 20 years, thus making me wish I'd thought out that joke a little better.

While in prison, Hadie favors us with a lovely little tune about the other celebrity slaughters Charlie had planned but never got to see to fruition before their incarceration. Of course Charlie and the rest of the Hanson family are found guilty for their crimes (of killing the celebrities at least, since nobody cares about crotchety middle class small business owners) and sentenced to crucifixion... err, electric chair, gas chamber, and hanging as it is. As for our flesh-and-blood dystopia nomad friend, upon finishing his book he returns to his people to sing the praises of Charlie Hanson, convert them to the ways of the Hanson family, and set out to bring their religion to the other tribes left on the planet... by stabbing them repeatedly with the "love" of Charlie... so 1000+ years into the future, not only will a paperback book manage to survive the harsh elements of hyper-global warming, but the English language will survive while all religion dies until said book (which is actually an anti-Charlie tome written by the prosecutor from the trial if you've ever read it) immediately turns everyone into worshipers of Charlie's word... Yeah, I know, applying logic to an intentionally fucked up claymation exploitation musical just makes me look like the bigger idiot in the long run. I'm not throwing a fit, I'm just pointing this stuff out for entertainment purposes.

I've put forth the concept of this movie to 20 different people and each one just stared at me, mouth agape, eyes wide and slightly glazed, anticipation building inside them until the words stopped coming out of my mouth and they'd finally have the chance to ask the same question I received all 20 times: WHERE CAN I GET THIS?! I try not to tell any of them whether or not I thought the movie was good mind you, as I prefer to let those close to me make those decisions for themselves. I only tell people what I really think here because I can't see any of you, I know very few of you, and barring a random tweak of the cosmic nipple, I'll never have to suffer any retribution for my recommendations or denouncements in person. So, just between you, me, and the person hiding behind the painting to my left of Martin Van Buren with the eyeballs cut out (yes, whomever you are, I know you're there...), here's what I really thought of Live Freaky! Die Freaky!: it's deranged brilliance on paper, but deranged disappointment on film.

Don't get me wrong, "disappointment" isn't being used in the "IT'S TOTAL CRAP!" sense, just in the "Oh... that's it? This is as good as it gets?" way. It's still a twisted tale, if a little over-talked at times. The majority of the voice work comes from Billie Joe and Kogan, and luckily they're the best voice actors of the cast so that helps. The rest of the group ranges from pretty good to "keep your day job", while the actual writing of the thing is weighed down with crude language that has no real purpose beyond either hoping to shock the audience or because John Roecker just likes writing the word "cock" over and over again. I've got no problem with vulgar language. Kevin Smith movies and George Carlin stand-up are the funniest things I've ever seen. But both of those things use the vulgarity to effect as an enhancer for comedy that's already there. More than once in LFDF though, the shit on screen is just streaming oral feces without a lick of wit in sight... not unlike Adam Sandler movies. Amidst the seemingly endless potty mouth though, there is actually a bevy of would-be memorable quotes to be taken from LFDF that deserve their own immortality on overpriced t-shirts. Kernals of sweet sweet corn swimming in a diaper full of baby squeezings.

Some of the diatribes, whether pointless or not, just seem to go on forever, probably so Armstrong's musician buddies could have more lines and wouldn't feel like their bit roles were unimportant. That, or everybody was just desperate to try and drag out the running time a little longer to warrant calling it a feature film instead of a short. Then again, given the special message (i.e. a textual middle finger) the folks offer up to the "flaky animators" during the end credits, maybe the whole thing was originally intended to be done on something of a grander scale and this was the best they could put together with what they were given. Who the fuck knows. In the plus column, the songs are twistedly enjoyable, quaint little diddies that slip into your ears and lay eggs when you're not paying attention. And even though the animation was apparently not up to par with the expectations of the folks in charge, I thought it was appropriately dark and cheap looking to fit the atmosphere of the movie. I wasn't expecting Tim Burton caliber stuff myself, so maybe that's why I wasn't so let down. The sex scenes are hideous though. Check out one of the screenshots in particular below to understand why. If you thought vaginas were scary spider-crab demons to look at before, it can always get worse.

So, all-in-all, Live Freaky! Die Freak! is a spectacle in its own right that lovers of such weird shit should check out. Turn down your expectations as far as quality and professionalism goes and you should be okay. I reiterate though, be warned that you're in for a barrage of crude sexual talk from every end of the spectrum and the occasional scene that seems to drag on until you just can't resist the urge anymore and you're forced to hit your FF>> button. Don't skip too far ahead though, because you'll miss something good.