Review of Shanks

I had never seen (or heard of) this flick before last night, when it aired on TCM. This movie is like a strange, experimental post-hippie-era bad dream. I'm not sure what to make of it, actually. 5 minutes into it, I knew it was going to be bad (or "bad") in a good way, and was resentful that I was gonna have to sit through the entire thing to let the Gnosis sink in. But by the end, I was glad I had. This flick is truly creepy, without (I think?) intending to be creepy (or as creepy as it actually wound up being, since the movie DID bill itself as a "grim fairy tale"). Some very surreal elements (perhaps "unlikely" or "poorly scripted" masquerading as "surreal"): ex.: the bikers carrying their dead companion, funeral-procession-like, into a house they've never been in. Other creepy elements: corpses being made to blow out birthday cake candles for a young girl (as if anyone would want a cake with corpse-breath all over it) and, shortly thereafter, the same corpse inadvertently cutting off its own finger while slicing the cake. Some of the "reanimation" scenes are truly amazing and freaky: bodies rising from the ground at the oddest angles, seemingly defying the law of gravity (part of the mime's craft in the film: kudos) with arms and legs askew- quite amazing to watch. I'll cut this short, but I was very glad I was able to accidentally catch this movie last night, and I would definitely recommend it to fans of oddball cinema, mimes, zombies, puppets, or William Castle. PS- the peculiar ending of the movie (suggested by the beginning) made me like it even more. And I would normally have given this movie an 8 on its own merits, but for being so absurdly original, I gave it an extra point. Ta.