A Town Called Awesome!

A Town Called Panic – Stephane Aubier and Vincent Patar

Stumbling across this small French stop animation film by gazing at its spectacularly funny trailer which i saw at a local picturehouse, i knew instantly i had to see it. And finally after a long long wait, it was released and shown at that very picturehouse. They knew they had to, it’s the type of film they would show for a weekend, where you’ll have to come in at ridiculous times to see this very European but very funny mad house of a film. I love this type of animation, similar to the Cravendale milk advert i’m sure you’ll call out for, but this was originally a set of small sketches made by the team in the form of a TV show quite a few years ago before the adverts. They decided they wanted to make a feature length and here we are. If you didn’t get chance to see this at the cinema, then you have to see it on DVD when it’s released. I promise you won’t be disappointed!

The film stars three plastic models named Cowboy, who is a cowboy, Indian, who is a Native American and Horse, who is, well you can get the picture. They all share a house in a rural village along with some colourful characters. The whole premise starts when the Cowboy and Indian want to get Horse a great birthday gift in the form of a new BBQ set and they order the bricks to build it. Unfortunately they buy 50 million instead of just 50. This has a chain reaction where they travel to the centre of the earth, a frozen tundra, and an underwater lair where a group of horrible looking creatures keeping stealing their efforts to deal with the bricks. It’s all crazy and fast paced and to try to describe half of what happens is different. I just about did it without going into too much detail. It’s the little things you’ll notice about this one too. Just look in the scenes and even the background characters are probably doing something hilarious. It’s cleverly made with some real emphasis on filmmaking and clearly made from a passionate place.

GO and watch this brilliant French animated film now because you’ll laugh a lot and it’s great to watch with friends, the kind of film to tell friends about and they’ll instantly think you’re cool. *Thumbs up*!

9/10

Simon Childs