[This is a re-post of my Yoga Hosers review from the 2016 Sundance Film Festival. The movie is now playing in limited release.]

What a strange, winding road Kevin Smith’s career has taken to bring him to Yoga Hosers, a "comedy" in which Nazi sausage monsters terrorize a convenience store by crawling up people’s butts and out their mouths, killing them in the process. The movie is the second film in Smith’s self-professed “True North” trilogy, which began with Tusk, a film where Smith at least seemed like he was trying. Yoga Hosers, meanwhile, is pure self-satisfaction, putting together this nonsensical, juvenile story just because he can. Which is fine, but as a movie—you know, a story told visually with actors and dialogue—it barely exists, registering as more of a “funny video” a guy decided to make with his friends and family despite promising turns by Lily-Rose Depp and Harley Quinn Smith.

Much like Clerks, the story of Yoga Hosers revolves around a pair of convenience store clerks, this time a pair of teenage BFFs both named Colleen, played by Depp and Smith. Canadians through and through, their time working at the “Eh-2-Zed” is mostly spent wishing they were somewhere else, or at least in the back room jamming away in their three-piece band. Complications arise when, after attempting to throw a party at the mostly deserted convenience store with a pair of cute older boys (Austin Butler and Tyler Posey), Nazi sausage monsters (played by a heavily prosthetic’d Kevin Smith, obviously) invade the store and murder both boys, revealing a conspiracy that involves the town’s dark history with the Nazi party.

That’s pretty much it, story-wise. While Clerks’ narrative can be summed up in a sentence, it’s filled with smart dialogue, hilarious punchlines, and a surprising emotional kick. Yoga Hosers, meanwhile, is more like a stream-of-conscious comedy filled with every kooky idea that popped into the incredibly high writer’s head in the 30 minutes it took to come up with the entire movie. As such, it plays out in random fashion, with various familiar faces popping up here and there (Jason Mewes, Jennifer Schwalbach, and even Lily-Rose Depp’s mother Vanessa Paradis, making this a true family affair). Which would be totally find if the film had anything to say, or even an engaging story, but it has neither.

Yoga Hosers does have one surprise in store, and that’s in just how much screentime Johnny Depp has reprising his Tusk character, private detective Guy Lapointe. He shows up early in Yoga Hosers and is essentially the film’s third lead, alongside Harley Quinn and Lily-Rose. The three set out to uncover the truth behind these Nazi sausage monsters, leading them on a journey that ends in painfully unfunny, uninteresting fashion with an out-of-nowhere plot twist that takes aim directly at critics. This is made all the more frustrating by that fact that, at least in the film’s first 20 minutes or so, there are signs that Lily-Rose Depp and Harley Quinn Smith could be in for a pair of breakout turns. Smith is funny and fiery, while Depp shows she has a really serious knack for acting with a turn that’s equal parts sweet, funny, and dangerous. But Kevin Smith’s lack of directorial vision fails to bring the best out in both actresses, and whatever promise they showed at the beginning is soon overshadowed by a ridiculously dumb story that only gets dumber as the film progresses. Smith has never claimed to be a great director, and has been more than candid about his shortcomings in the visual department, but he attempts to add energy to Yoga Hosers by refusing to hold the camera still and by drowning out every scene with score. Both prove distracting, though I guess addressing these issues wouldn’t change much given that the script is so poorly conceived.

Johnny Depp hams up the screen each time he arrives, complete with a mole that switches places every minute or so. The whole “Aren’t we having fun?” vibe just further proves Smith’s admission that he’s no longer making movies for audiences, he’s making them for himself. But in amusing himself with gibberish-speaking sausage monsters, Ralph Garman delivering a series of poor celebrity impressions, and terrible attempts at Canadian accents, Smith ends up failing to entertain the audience. Look, if you want to make home movies with your friends and family that’s fine. But if you’re going to release them as feature films, at least respect viewers enough to try to make something that makes sense. Smith’s trajectory from the smart and heartfelt Clerks and Chasing Amy to the truly atrocious Yoga Hosers is both fascinating and disappointing. I know there’s a better writer, even a better filmmaker in there somewhere. Tusk felt like a genuine attempt at trying to make a good movie, and even though the result was a mixed bag, at least Smith put himself out there. But Yoga Hosers is a retreat into, “If you don’t like it, I just won’t even try” territory, resulting in an intentionally critic-proof movie that exists only to amuse a handful of people. It’s a very, very, very bad movie, but I’m not even mad that it’s awful. I’m frustrated that Smith didn’t even try. Rating: D-