Be wevy quiet, I'm watching Wabbits

For some strange, unexplained reason, I felt like watching David Lynch's latest film in the movies. I don't really like Lynch's films, and that's being kind. Yet I had this sort of gut feeling which told me I would like this movie. This was despite Lynch's confession that: "I don’t know exactly how this thing will finally unfold... This film is very different because I don’t have a script. I write the thing scene by scene and much of it is shot and I don’t have much of a clue where it will end."

And boy, does it ever show. Of course, you never watch a Lynch movie for plot or consistency, you watch it for the surreal, menacing atmosphere, the strange images and Angelo Badalamenti's amazing music scores. But Inland Empire suffers from a lack of any sense of consistency, even when compared to the rest of Lynch's movies. At this point I should confess that I've seen most of his movies, yes I'm glutton for punishment.

At any rate, while the plot is all over the place, what really hurts the movie in my opinion is the long length. I rarely complain about a movie's length, but in such a film where you have to search for clues in virtually every scene, three hours is a bit too much. I started feeling tired by the 150 minutes mark or so, and by the end I was outright bored, the movie had lost me. I still kind of liked it, but not as much as I expected.

Anyway, enough Lynch-bashing for one post. If there was something I really, really liked in the film was the little segments with the humanoid rabbits, which were in what appeared to be a set of a 50's sitcom, complete with an audience laugh track that was used on lines that weren't really funny.

The people in the movie I was in preferred to just giggle like school children, but something in those segments captivated me. There was an underlying sense of malice and dread to them, like something bad was going on but you couldn't even begin to understand what, which made things even worse. Lynch at his finest, in other words. Also it sorta reminded me of Silent Hill 3, my favorite SH ever, and that's a big plus. Of course, Rabbits pre-dated SH3, I wouldn't be surprised if I heard that it influenced Konami's game.

So imagine my delight when I found out that Lynch had made a whole series out of that concept. Originally it was only released on Lynch's official website in 8 episodes, and while it's no longer there, other websites now host at least a few of those episodes. Hooray for the internets!

I've watched the first two episodes so far, and well... without spoiling anything, I knew that whoever the rabbits were waiting for was up to no good, but I wasn't expecting that. I almost started yelling "HOLY MOTHER OF GOD!" during a very specific scene.

Also, if Wikipedia can link to Rabbits on YouTube, then heck, so can I. Here's the first episode:



The whole series can be found here.

Lastly... why are rabbits (at least humanoid ones) so damn creepy? I found them seriously unsettling in Silent Hill 3, and I felt exactly the same in Rabbits. I could make a joke about furries here, but I'd rather not.