VHYES is successful by using funny sketches the wrong way

Clunky sketch-derived movies like A Night at the Roxbury, Coneheads, and Superstar just show the point; what was funny for 4 or 5 minutes feels like flogging a dead horse at function length. Jack Henry Robbins’ VHYES beats the system by approaching the idea of a sketch motion picture from the opposite direction. Instead of attempting to stretch out one sketch to include length, Robbins loads his movie complete of sketches that seem unrelated, up until they coalesce into a single story.

Animation Network’s Adult Swim has thrived on unusual sketch funny, with programs like Robotic Chicken and Tim and Eric Awesome Program, Great Task! VHYES at first feels like a prolonged episode of a similar series. Young Ralph (Mason McNulty) has a new video camera, and he’s utilized it to tape over his parents’ wedding event VHS. The movie is suggested to be the outcome: a mix of video from the wedding, Ralph’s recordings of life around your house, and various programs taped off TELEVISION.

Each TV-show bit parodies a familiar bit of TELEVISION tradition, from Bob Ross’ painting tutorials to Antiques Roadshow

The bits and pieces are completely unusual, and they feature a few of the very best comics presently working. Kerri Kenney ( Reno! 911) plays the Bob Ross-esque figure, Thomas Lennon (likewise of Reno! 911) plays among the shopping-channel hosts, and Mark Proksch (the What We Carry Out In the Shadows series, Much Better Call Saul) plays the appraiser. They all nail the transition from standard TV shows to increasingly discomfiting turmoil.

As the clips alternate with video from Ralph’s life, socializing with his mother (Christian Drerup) or his buddy Josh (Rahm Braslaw), it slowly ends up being clear that everything is linked. VHYES is a story about a child reckoning with his parents’ divorce. The previously cool, mild world of late-night TELEVISION starts to blur and become cruel as Ralph realizes that his moms and dads’ marital relationship is falling apart. The sketches break down as clips of the relatively picturesque wedding event still flash across the screen, emphasizing a sense of rudderlessness, in addition to how complicated and unthinkable the impending split feels.

The slow reveal of exactly what’s happening is masterful. The bite-sized bits of late-night shows develop the illusion that VHYES is a collection of discrete parts rather than a whole; it feels a speculative movie, and the revelation that the movie is telling a more straightforward story isn’t a dissatisfaction as much as it is a sort of twist.

What makes VHYES a lot more impressive is the truth that it’s really totally shot on VHS. The movie is in the almost square VHS 4:3 aspect ratio, and it’s a little grainy, accompanied by periodic lines of visual fixed. Nostalgia has hit it huge in series like Complete Stranger Things and the It motion picture franchise, however the commitment to VHS implies VHYES really seems like it was made in the era it’s depicting. (It’s nearly jarring to see the director’s parents, Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon, surface in cameo appearances, as they’re the only overt ideas that the motion picture wasn’t in fact made in the 1980 s.)

Jack Henry Robbins, who co-wrote the movie with Nunzio Randazzo, ultimately takes the absurdity threaded throughout the film to an almost David Lynchian level, a gambit that works mostly due to the fact that of the sketch-y nature of the movie, and how brief it is at simply 72 minutes. He’s figured out how to make an effective sketch film, and he’s tapped into fond memories much better than any of the Steven Spielberg or Stephen King would-bes mining the very same vein.

VHYES debuts in theaters Jan. 17.