Dumbland (DVD)

Dumbland follows the mundane adventures of Randy, a boorish brute with a short temper and disdain for his family and neighbours. When he’s not throwing verbal abuse at his neighbour (a self confessed “one-armed duck fucker”) and admiring his shed, he’s reminiscing about killing things with his old pal or being driven to near-insanity by an army of ants.

Originally produced as exclusive content for his official website, David Lynch’s Dumbland consists of eight crudely drawn vignettes, written, directed, voiced and composed by Lynch himself, who describes his creation as an “absurd animated comedy”. Absurd is right. The flash-animated series boasts some of the most insane and inane material ever to emerge from Lynch’s weird and wonderful mind.

With the series, Lynch once again lifts the lid on suburban American and peers into the grotesque darkness within, and what he finds is ugly, darkly amusing and deeply depressing. However, life behind this particular white picket fence isn’t nearly as interesting nor is it as accessible as the nightmare world of Blue Velvet, but then these are doodle-like cartoons with fart gags galore and cursing aplenty, which suggests that all Lynch really wanted to do here was get a bit silly, have a few laughs and pay no heed to sophistication.

The problem with this particular release is, while the show works fine in the context of the Internet where you’d be happy to spend a few minutes clicking through Dumbland’s various episodes, on the DVD it loses impact and worth (how many times could you actually watch these episodes and enjoy them?), and with each episode clocking in at about three minutes each, Dumbland isn’t exactly great value for money. With nothing in the way of special features either, Dumbland wouldn’t appear to be a very wise investment at all.
 
Overall Verdict: Fleetingly entertaining but a barebones DVD package that’s not really worth an investment.

Special Features:
None

Reviewer: Lee Griffiths