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5.3/10
Senior Film Conservator
A definitive 5.3/10 rating for a film that redefined the boundaries of cult cinema. The Hillbilly remains a cornerstone of transgressive art.
If you like your animation with a side of pure, chaotic noise, then yes. It’s perfect for people who grew up on Saturday morning cartoons and find modern, "meaningful" animation a bit too sleepy. If you prefer slow-burn stories or anything resembling logic, you’ll probably find this thing incredibly irritating.
There’s something about the way the rabbits and hounds just start shooting at each other that feels delightfully unhinged. It’s not trying to teach a lesson or be a masterpiece. It’s just violence for the sake of a laugh.
Watching Oswald try to romance a hound while the rest of his family is busy turning the landscape into Swiss cheese with shotguns is peak cartoon logic. The pacing is absolutely relentless. It moves so fast you barely have time to notice the background art, which is a shame because those hand-painted hills have a weird charm.
There’s this one moment where the guns go off, and the smoke creates these perfect little rings. It’s such a tiny detail, but it stuck with me more than the actual plot. Why spend so much time on the smoke rings? Maybe the animators were just bored.
It reminds me a bit of the frantic energy in How the Camel Got His Hump, though this one is much more focused on the sheer spectacle of physical comedy. The feud never really ends, of course. That’s the joke. It’s a loop of misery, but, you know, in a funny way. 🐰
The practical joke at the end is so predictable you can see it coming from a mile away. You’re just waiting for the trigger to get pulled. When it finally happens, the sheer escalation is just ridiculous. It’s not deep, it’s not clever, but it kept me watching until the very last frame.
It’s nice to watch something that isn't afraid to be completely, aggressively stupid. Sometimes you just need to see a hound get his tail tied in a knot and call it a day. 🐕
If you’re looking for high-brow cinema, go look at Vor tids helte or something. If you want to see a rabbit lose his mind over a feud, stay right here.
