
From November 12th, 2024, Crust will be available on all major Video On Demand platforms and DVD and Blu-ray will be released on December 10th, 2024.
Set to be released via Video on Demand services on November 12th, 2024, and subsequently on DVD and Bluray on December 10th, 2024, ‘Crust’ is tendentious humor unable to have a single lucid scene, and its director, Sean Whalen, also plays a little cameo in the crazy make-believe world that his screenplay tries to capture. Crust is bound to entertain the audience and seems very promising as it boasts of an incredible cast including a very cute and loving monster. The film aims to entertain the viewers and provoke them to watch the film over and over again.
The primary role of Walheln was that of ‘Vegas,’ who indeed used to be a well-known child sitcom actor and now runs a laundromat somewhere in Los Angeles as well as being shown to have clinical depression. During the daytime, he works in a self-serve laundromat that he co-owns with his childhood buddy Russ (Daniel Roebuck). He and his partner deal with the odd vexatious client as he also handles pleasures of self-pleasure in a secluded area of the establishment. But it appears that along with the laundrette, Vegas also inhabits the vicinity of the city, as he finds more conveniently located stockings from the new mound on the ground. After a fan news program spins a stale old sit-com for a potential revival, despite its notoriety, the main character of the show, Baker’s Dozen of the 90s, became more bitter and resentful after he was allegedly ‘invited’ to reappear on the show. As it was reported on the news channel, two of the cult series cast members survived the general massacre targeted at its participants and their relatives, and the supervision-in-charge, out of which, I died. A single remaining Baker Dozen actor, Randy (Alan Ruck), is finding glory in Hollywood and is actively pursuing the profession.
Aside from everything else, the other thing that is a problem is his ex-lover Laura (Felissa Rose) who is still part of his life but he knows she cannot accept his excess emotional baggage. Indeed the life of Vegas is chaotic.
So, one day after four kids invade the laundromat and start teasing him, one of the kids takes the video of Vegas while he’s masturbating and posts it on the internet. The reaction is huge, and out of the blue, Vegas is the hottest topic in the entertainment press. Reporters camp outside the laundromat and Vegas’ relatively quiet life (yes he was in a lot of pain but there was some level of comfort) is completely shattered. It’s at this moment that Vegas receives an email from Randy who wants him to appear in the new series Baker’s Dozen, a new woman also appears in his life (Nila, Rebekah Kennedy) and the sock mountain in his backroom kicks off.
Yes, that is exactly what I said – the sock mountain kicks off. And the sock mountain starts attacking people. Some of them are eaten.
Vegas finds out about the sock monster, and luckily for him, he is not looking for one since the monstrous sock is allegedly real and causes him distress – he decides to call the sock monster Crust. Meanwhile, Nila becomes closer to Vegas, Laura goes cuckoo on a funny farm (Crust goes on a wild rampage after her new boyfriend and Laura gets blamed for it), and a paranormal investigator dubbed Agent Bynes decides to make his presence felt (Bynes has information of Crust’s sock monster!), and for maybe the better, Vegas’s life takes a new direction. And at this direction change, Vegas is best friends with Crust. Actually, Crust and Vegas become the closest companions that Vegas has ever had, even more than Nila and Russ. Perhaps such relationships are even good? Should a person, for the love of God, become best friends with a sock that munches on humans?
You also have no reason to watch other common movie comedies because Crust bafflingly keeps surprising you. Even in cases where you expect the plot to advance in a predictable manner, the film comedy manages not just to follow your conceptual line but breaks it. In my view, realistic heart-felt comedies do not turn events upside down at all.
Naturally, there isn’t another rom-com I know that has a living pile of socks at the heart of it. Crust is unpredictable because it has a constant presence. The most unexpectedly interesting thing about Crust might be its conclusion which, if you consider it, feels right in the whole context. What will the audience think about these events? It’s debatable. Some people may not appreciate the climax. Some people might be disqualified at first. I love it.
Yet another strong point about Crust is that, whenever it decides to go into “horror movie” territory, it doesn’t seem out of place. Crust really stops being a horror film once the sock monster comes along, and Crust the sock monster is so frickin weird that it still somehow makes sense with what is around it. Up to that point, mostly comedy and, in a healthy amount, a parody of Hollywood (the two hosts of the Hollywood tv show are a master at such). The maximum that can be said about C.R.U.S.T. is “How do you fit a sock monster into all of this?” Crust manages to do that rather well. And the fact that Crust is mostly a black-and-white film, anyway, is also a great tool (only one scene in the entire film cannot be called black and white). Trying to see the film in color is virtually impossible, so no one will bother. And what more fitting location for a bunch of socks to run amok and make friends than a world that is colored in shades of grey? The very introduction of the screen gives the perfect start to this ‘Quixotism’ type of movie.
Why does everything have to be labeled? I wish that I knew. But it is a detail that this film provides, and that is quite funny to behold. Because who in their right mind would go to great lengths to label everything? It’s laughable.
Crust has its own pace which is quite comfortable but the pace never goes to the slow end. The film does focus on character development and as a result, the audience engages with the film’s characters even if they are not particularly fond of them. The overall tone of sorrow that comes with Vegas’s quest to find his purpose is also constant but it’s not too much. It’s just another element, and you simply accept it.
And then come the performances. There really is not a single “off” or bad performance in Crust. Sean Whalen really is the core and just the heart of the movie as Vegas. Vegas does look like he has gone through a lot of struggles throughout his life for he did not get fame easy. He is in this strange kind of limbo where he does not know what direction to take in life or what it is that he wants. What Vegas does seem to know is that operating a laundromat and trying to remain in the background is nearly a good fit for him. Almost. But slowly, his life starts to change when both Crust and Nila come into the picture. Is it for the good or for the bad? Whalen does exactly what Vegas needs him to do. He is a funny guy. He is emotionally naked, and he can be quite bewildered at everything surrounding him and what is going on around him. Great stuff, what a great performance! Considering also that he directed the movie too, it makes you admire Whalen’s performance even more. What a great, great performance.
Rebekah Kennedy delivers an excellent performance as Nila. She literally portrays a character that seems to have appeared out of thin air to bond with the lost Vegas. She then eventually becomes something more. At first, one tends to think that Nila is borderline borderline a stalker of a star. For some reason, some might argue, there has to be some sort of motive in her vocation aimed towards Vegas which mostly revolves around “Oh she was a star” and it’s set in Los Angeles. Show business is built on the premises of bullshit after all. Nila hooks up with this Vegas guy whose character is still somewhat sketchy (there is a flashback explaining this, it’s all good), but there is a connection between these characters that you just know is the real deal. There is some way, somewhere that Nila and Vegas fit each other perfectly. The audience knows that Nila enjoys working with Whalen and there is a certain level of correspondence between them that creates cinematic beauty. It is also an advantage that when Kennedy is on screen nobody is able to remain indifferent, she is truly mesmerizing.
Russ is portrayed by Daniel Roebuck who brings the character to life in a comical way. No matter what the situation is, be it a meeting or a celebration, there is always a beer in his hand and his character’s personality loves every bit of it, even to the extent that he can come off as mildly disturbing to others. There is this air of Russ always thinking, ‘I would bang that hot babe over there’, which would indeed be intolerable in real life. However, in a movie, watching it is different and quite entertaining. Russ also thanks and insult people in the same breath which is a rare occurrence these days but Koebuck demonstrates it quite effortlessly. There is not a single moment in the film that he is not dominating. And if by some miracle, a “Crust 2” occurs, it would be unreasonable to think that he would pass judgement over his character role as Russ. Vander has quite quickly become synonymous with Chun Li, so too has Koebuck with Russ. It is as if the two actors were always destined to play the roles of their respective characters.
Felissa Rose is delightful once more, playing Laura, Vegas’s ex-lover who has issues of his own that caused their separation. Rose never fails to deliver a powerful performance. If you hate her, there’s a chance you’ll find sympathies for her at some point. Weak sympathies. But if she found it hard dealing with the troubles of Vegas and chose to leave, then the case should have ended there. Instead, Laura fancies herself as someone who is getting the better of Vegas by showing how being effective at living is done. And this is probably the worst thing about Laura, though I wouldn’t fault Rose for writing her this way. What I really appreciate is her ability to operate elegantly between comedy and drama. It’s obvious why she is a current genre icon.
The audience can finally meet Alan Ruck as Randy as well. In most cases, Ruck has a very limited role in the movie as they describe it aptly a single scene to be exact, and yet Ruck has so much of that one scene doing his silly and funny.
Ruck at some stage of the movie gives away a true blue Hollywood asshole as his character and you won’t exactly like him or trust him in any manner. One interesting aspect about him is the fake hair that Ruck has been wearing. I expect you’ll have a good laugh at Randy’s conduct because it mentally feels wrong to me. I indeed did, while it is pretty dysfunctional.
Then, the Crust sock monster is exceptionally amazing and should win multiple special effects awards. I assume that Crust is a sort of puppet because it does not look like proper CGI. I mean, who would not cringe at the very thought of using crusty socks as the figurative foundation for a character? But at the same time, Crust is very entertaining and filled with positive energy. Very much curious if Crust will show himself at future conventions. The possibilities I think are huge; horror fans along with Shirley could easily take selfies with Crust.
Crust is a good Bloody Butcher horror comedy movie. It is very strange, yet also humorous and shocking, and quite unpredictable. It is one of the best films released in the 2024 year and an amazing first-time directing by the star Whalen. This is definitely a title that you should go out of your way to watch. The crust is easily worth your time.
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