Indeed, with the exception of only a few 'big city' shots, The Weirdo resides in a rural fairytale version of the Southland located not a million miles from the Spahn Movie Ranch.
And while I would never, EVER claim that it's a classic film of any variety, it weaves a strange spell thanks to Milligan's preference for deadpan dialogue, angular set-ups, and odd settings.
GUSO DROP PAINFUL VIOLENT SERIES
Another in his series of 'dinner theater' productions, it was shot in Southern California with an amateur cast. The Weirdo (actually entitled Weirdo, the Beginning on the video print) was a massive step up for director Andy Milligan after the train wreck that was Carnage (1986). Too bad the original is "lost", I'd love to see it. Definitely not "the worst film" ever (none of Milligan's films are even close to that), but too lumbering and leaden for its own good. If you've read "The Ghastly One" and actually like some of Milligan's films, parts might strike you as almost touching, since so much of Milligan himself seems to be on display here, but that said the high-school cast, awkward dialog, silly 80s gang, and characters who arbitrarily change at the drop of a plot point don't really help matters. The weirdo, Donnie, is basically a harmless borderline retard a la Hal Borske in "The Ghastly Ones" who is bullied and humiliated before taking his revenge in an oddly satisfying but shoddy manner. Unlike his other 80s films, however, there are lots of early Milligan elements: horrible, evil mothers, sadistic and cruel authority figures, freaks (I guess Donnie's crippled girlfriend counts), and Milligan's own obvious identification with the doomed monster. Beyond that the crazy, manic energy of Milligan's early films, the screaming actors, traumatic camera-work, and canned background music are long gone, replaced by a modicum of "professionalism". In many ways it is the ultimate Milligan film, undone by the same elements that did in Milligan's last few films: the gritty, sleazy ensembles of "The Ghastly Ones" and "Fleshpot on 42nd Street" are replaced by bland actors from the fringes of respectable Hollywood. If this seems a lot different from the rest of Milligan's sparse 80s output, it's because this is actually a remake of a mid-70s Milligan film that was lost.
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