It's clear that [director] Glover is less interested in narrative than in rekindling a rich midnight-movie/avant-garde tradition that encompasses everything from Maya Deren and Jack Smith to Alejandro Jodorowsky and David Lynch.
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What Is It?
Overview
The adventures of a young man whose principle interests are snails, salt, a pipe, and how to get home. As tormented by a hubristic, racist inner psyche.
Director and cast
- Crispin Glover Director
- Michael Bleviss as The Young Man
- Carlos Richardson as The Young Man's Alter Ego
- Lisa Fusco as The Young Man's Fantasy Girl
- Crispin Glover as Dueling Demi-God Auteur / The Young Man's Inner Psyche and Id
- Steven C. Stewart as Dueling Demi-God Auteur / The Young Man's Uber Ego
- John Insinna as The Young Man's Outer Sanctum Friend / Inner Sanctum's Choked Victim
- Kelly Swiderski as Inner Sanctum Concubine / Outer Sanctum Snail Collector
- Robin Adams as Inner Sanctum Concubine / Outer Sanctum Girl Who Recognizes Burning
- Adam Parfrey as The Minstrel
- Rickey Wittman as The Minstrel's Nemesis
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
Glover, who appears in the film as a kind of barbarian dictator-auteur, lacks both the self-imposed ideological innocence and the talent for composing sounds and images of David Lynch.
A shocker, but not a world-class one.
His directorial debut, What Is It? -- which plays as part of a double bill with a live, enthusiastically performed slide show in which Mr. Glover displays pages from his recent series of books -- is just as unclassifiable as he is.
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