Every weekday morning when I wake up, I check Slack to see what my editors need me to write up, and today there was a little treat waiting for me. I didn't attend the Sundance Film Festival this year, so the bizarre little indie movie Greener Grass wasn't really on my radar, but when Frosty dropped the trailer in Slack with a note reading "I promise you have never seen a film like it," he had my attention. Sure enough, this looks all kinds of weird, so count me in.
Written and directed by Jocelyn DeBoer and Dawn Luebbe, Greener Grass is a dark comedy set in a day-glo-colored, bizarro version of suburbia where adults wear braces on their already-straight teeth, everyone drives golf carts, and children magically turn into golden retrievers. The filmmakers play soccer moms and best friends Jill (DeBoer) and Lisa (Luebbe), who are locked in a passive aggressive battle-of-the-wills that takes a turn into the sinister when Lisa begins systematically taking over every aspect of Jill’s life -- starting with her newborn daughter. Meanwhile, a psycho yoga teacher killer is on the loose, Jill’s husband (SNL's Beck Bennett) has developed a curious taste for pool water, and Lisa is pregnant with a soccer ball. Per the press release, "that’s just the tip of [this] gloriously weird iceberg," which bills itself as "a hilariously demented, Stepford Wives-on-acid satire destined to be an instant cult classic."
IFC Midnight acquired Greener Grass out of Sundance and will release the film on Oct. 18 in New York and Los Angeles, though it will also be available on VOD platforms. Ghostbusters villain Neil Casey co-stars alongside Mary Holland (Veep) and D'Arcy Carden (The Good Place). Meanwhile, Variety called it "the best Saturday Night Live movie that Saturday Night Live never made," while the Hollywood Reporter compared it to oddball suburban tales such as Serial Mom and Edward Scissorhands.
DeBoer and Luebbe are veteran performers at The Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre who partnered up in 2015 and formed Gulp Splash Productions. Greener Grass is based on their 2016 SXSW award-winning short film of the same name. The duo recently directed two episodes of TruTV’s Adam Ruins Everything, and in 2017 they sold a TV pilot to IFC. They have written and produced three short films which have appeared in over 70 film festivals worldwide. I'm definitely excited to see Greener Grass, and eager to see where their careers lead them next.
Watch Collider's interview with the cast and filmmakers behind Greener Grass by clicking here, and then check out the film's trailer below. Feel free to let me know on Twitter if I'm crazy for thinking that this looks weirdly interesting.