By Trudi-Rose Edwards
“We’re sorry about all the liquid.”
Those were the last words of Mikk Mägi, co-director (along with Oskar Lehemaa) of The Old Man Movie: Lactopalypse! before the theatre lights went down. Then we, the audience, were transported to a somewhat deranged and thoroughly grotesque stop-motion imagining of rural Estonia.
The Old Man Movie: Lactopalypse! tells the story of three city children who are unceremoniously dumped at their grandfather’s farm in a remote Estonian village for the summer. To their chagrin, their grandfather – the eponymous Old Man – wants them to help out around the farm whilst he attends to his seemingly favourite pastime: milking his prized cow.
Old Man certainly knows his way around an udder. His milking efficiency draws a daily crowd of locals to his barn, each hoping for a jug of the creamy goodness. But it is also apparent that his mistreated cow yearns for a better life. The children, seeing the suffering of the poor cow, set her free. But this only results in a visit from Old Milker, a former expert milker just like Old Man who warns that if the escaped cow’s udders are not relieved within 24 hours they will explode in nuclear fashion and unleash the dreaded ‘lactopalypse’.
Old Man and his grandchildren set off to find and milk the cow. But Old Milker, having been subject to a previous lactopalypse which has somehow left him wheelchair-bound and sweating milk, has other ideas. He’s hellbent on decapitating the cute cattle with a chainsaw.
If you’re thinking this sounds very much like your typical animated caper then you’re wrong. This is no Shaun the Sheep. Whilst the first half of the movie doesn’t shy away from playing the obvious milk-and-udders innuendo game or taking fart jokes to a crude new level, the second act is almost certainly what caused it to miss out on the family-friendly 12-rating from the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC): a giant bear farts out a collection of whole (living) woodland creatures, someone is graphically impaled by our rogue bovine, and an ancient tree is pleasured by a tractor (ironically, not a euphemism).
The humour is both gleefully low-brow (a raise of hands for those who want to witness an old man inflate a pig by blowing into its…well, you get the picture) and quietly hilarious. One of Old Milker’s henchmen gives a thought-provoking monologue about how he has lost his wife, children and livelihood having fallen on hard times only to be promptly ignored by all those around him. There are a few references that the average British viewer may not appreciate, not least the cameo of Estonian rock star Jaagup Kreem whose appearance will likely fly over the heads of most. But on the whole, we learn that poop-jokes really are universally appreciated. And that thanks to the excellently translated subtitles, there is a big gap in the market for more Estonian humour in mainstream film.
The movie runs out of steam a little by the time we reach the grand finale which resorts to a rather run-of-the mill showdown between the heroes and antagonists. But given the film’s break-neck pacing and the sheer amount of absurdity crammed into 88 minutes, this is a minor quibble in the grand scheme of things.
The wild and absolutely unique storyline is matched by the quality of the animation. Stop-motion is a largely underappreciated art-form given the advent of its 3D and CGI counterparts. But Lactopalypse creates a wonderfully grotesque stop-motion world. Our main characters resemble the kind of potato-faced figures a child might make at school as apposed to the more aesthetically pleasing generally seen in the animated world.
Overall, The Old Man Movie: Lactopalypse! is a squirm-inducing collection of chaos that is in equal parts absurd, deranged and hilarious. Is it one for the whole family? The easily-offended may struggle with some (all) of the jokes. The crudest of them are likely to fly over the heads of younger children. Parents with teenagers at the height of their awkward stage may want to let them go to the cinema with their friends this half-term rather than as part of a family outing. And an open-mind is required for the more sensitive viewer. But only the severely lactose intolerant will find fault with this movie.
As for the ‘liquids’ that the directors apologised for that take the shape of gallons of milk, gushing blood and far too realistic-looking gobs of phlegm – it’s disgusting but beautifully so which perhaps best describes the movie as a whole.
The Old Man Movie: Lactopalypse! is released in cinemas nationwide on 2 June. Rating: 15