Escanaba in da Moonlight is an ungodly hybrid of a creepy horror movie, a slap-stick comedy, a Rocky Horror Picture Show-esque cult fantasy, a serious drama, and just about everything else. Like EvilDead met the Three Stooges and Dumb and Dumber and they all went to a Michigan theme park with It's a Wonderful Life and Fargo.
It's bloody hilarious.
There are a lot of strange movies out there, but this is "Strange and Stranger" than any I have ever seen. At least, any that have remained watchable. This movie can be a bit off putting because of its reckless style, but it is worth it to get passed that. It may be a film like Napoleon Dynamite, notorious for requiring a second viewing to appreciate it. It's ability (and tendency) to bounce straight from creep show to fart joke is simply fascinating. It shows the versatile talents and arrogance of Jeff Daniels as he casts and directs himself in the lead role of a plot he wrote.
I'm a little surprised he didn't just break out into song. It wouldn't have been outrageously out of place.
Yet despite it's brazen leap-frogging and silliness, Escanaba in da Moonlight also has some important things to say. It uses as its vehicle a metaphor and scenario I don't understand (hunting), but I was still able to appreciate what it was saying with it.
I'd like to see the other film written by Daniels and Guy Sanville, which came out just one year later, Super Sucker.
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