Hell and Back (2015)

Hell and Back is ParaNorman meets Lucy Daughter of the Devil, and is a hoot and a half. Some have been critical, but I like the stop motion animation. It was cartoonish but did not feel as antic and bouncing-off-the-walls as the Madagascar films. I also liked the added comic touches of physical comedy, such as the snap at the end of a tumble. The characters and comedy were not as strong as Archer or Boondocks, which are 5 stars in my book, but they carried the story and gave me more laughs than I would have expected with such subject matter. My favorite humor is the secretarial voice on the Devil’s intercom and Hell’s P.A. system. (“Welcome to Hell. You are here for a reason. Pick up after yourself. Your mother doesn’t live here. Or, if she does, she was a whore.”) The malleability of the Devil’s personae is fun too – Hellboy-like beast with an attitude, or artiste poseur. This show is not a family values lovefest – the first half has an awful lot of adolescent genital fixation and F-bombs, and a major plot point in the second half is sex-offender male rape by sentient, mobile oak trees. It all fits into the plot, even though I was no fan of the genital trash talk and angel’s stripper-pole scene. I’m beginning to think I’m a sucker for anything that has Bob Odenkirk, Mila Kunis, and H. Jon Benjamin. It's rated R, people! 4 stars. (3-10-2016)