Sunday Go to Meetin' Time: A weird, dusty trip

Is it worth the watch?

If you have a weird obsession with early animation or just want to see how movies used to handle... well, everything, then sure. It is a short, punchy, and deeply strange little film. If you get easily annoyed by outdated tropes or lack of polish, you should probably stay far away. This is one of those things you watch at 2:00 AM on a Tuesday when your brain is already halfway to the afterlife anyway.

Mantan Moreland is doing all the heavy lifting here, and you can really tell. He has this frantic, bug-eyed energy that is honestly kind of hypnotic. He sneaks out of church, goes for the chicken, and—wham—he is out. The transition into the dream sequence happens so fast it feels like a jump cut in a YouTube vlog. One second you are in a field, the next you are in a cartoon version of hell.

The whole thing feels a lot more disjointed than The Golden Touch. There is a lack of rhythm here that is hard to ignore, but that is also kind of why it works. It doesn't care about making sense. It just wants to move to the next gag, even if the gag doesn't quite land.

Oddly specific observations:

• The way the chicken just stands there looking judgmental? Honestly, same.
• The background art changes style so abruptly it’s like they switched artists halfway through a lunch break.
• I spent way too long staring at the texture of the church floor. It looks like it was drawn with a crayon that was about to run out.

There is this moment where he is falling, and the perspective shift is just bizarre. It reminded me of the frantic energy in Rival Romeos, but with way less charm. You can almost see the animators sweating over the frame counts. They were definitely trying to pull off something huge with a tiny budget and a lot of caffeine.

Is it a masterpiece? No. Is it fascinatingly messy? Definitely. It reminds me a bit of the frantic energy in Dr. Pyckle and Mr. Pryde, where the chaos is the point. You don't watch this for the plot. You watch it to see how many weird faces Mantan can pull before the credits roll. 🐔

It’s not trying to be deep. It’s not trying to win an award. It just exists in its own weird little vacuum. Sometimes that is exactly what I want in a movie, even if it leaves me feeling a bit confused at the end.