THE WEIRD KIDZ is a gloriously rough animated feature that captures the plucky adventure of such classics as The Goonies and Explorers while charting its own path through atomic-age paranoia. The 8-year labor of love from writer-director  Zach Passero oozes with nostalgia and a genuine fondness 80’s that has a particular ring of truth amid the absurd sci-fi lunacy. That’s not to say it is a slick time capsule of an adventure movie, it isn’t. but it is a sincere one that will elicit more than a few laughs.

The story opens with Dug (Tess Passero) and his pals Mel (Glenn Bolton) and Fatt (Brian Ceely). They are hanging out at the local convenience store waiting to be picked up. Dug is hammering away at an arcade game and working to top his high score when older brother Wyatt (Ellar Coltrane) and Wyatt’s girlfriend Mary (Sydney Wharton) roll up to take the three junior high schoolers out for an overnight camping trip. Wyatt and Mary arrive and the three boys, along with Mel’s dog Grumbles, pile into the truck and head off for adventure. A stop for gas and stolen beer lands the group at a gas station just outside the park. Cashier Duana (Angela Bettis) humors Dug as his friends attempt to steal beers from the cooler and warns him of a local creature known as The Night Child. Apparently, this creature likes to stalk campsites in search of victims to feast on.

The quintet of youths arrive at the desert campsite and begin to relax. While Dug and his friends are itching to shoot off their fireworks, Wyatt and his girlfriend are hoping to make their own. Suddenly The Night Child appears and runs off with one of the boys leaving Wyatt, Mary, and the others to fend off more attacks. The chaos that erupts at the campsite is hilarious, 80’s teen sex comedy farce with a bit of monster movie thrown in and it had me cackling. The group scrambles for help from the locals including Duana and the Sherrif (Sean Bridgers), but even they have their nefarious schemes.

THE WEIRD KIDZ is a sublimely oddball animated feature that captures the 80s in ways that would only resonate with those who were there. The novelty of leaving your three-digit moniker on a video game at a convenience store, cassette tapes, and illustrations that feel as if they were pulled from the pages of Eastman and Laird’s early Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics, it’s all here. Then there are the darker notes that are laughably dismissed like Wyatt and Dug’s parents ignoring them for a younger sister that shows more promise.

In the end, THE WEIRD KIDZ is a scribbly look back at a bygone time through the lens of a goofball monster movie. We have the suspicious townsfolk, the kids that have more sense than most, and the monster who has a lot more humanity than you might think. Hang out with THE WEIRD KIDZ. You might have a good time. Then again, you might have your arm torn by a monster. Who knows?

 7 Out Of 10