Sean Whalen’s Debut “Crust” Now on Blu-ray!

Vegas Winters is a famous washed-up child actor now working at a laundry mat. Depressed from having been exploited during his career years, Vegas’s problems continue as an unkempt, middle-aged man still enamored with an ex-girlfriend who can’t stand the sight of his growth impotency and the news of his show’s revival that stirs up the past’s unwelcomed hubbub. Day-in and day-out, Vegas does the laundry mat rounds, collecting lost socks for his own personal use, whether be for blowing his nose, cleaning a blood lip, or masturbating into for his daydreaming fantasies, until one day the poor schlub is beyond humiliated and sheds a tear into his pile of used and unwanted collection of socks that turns the heap into his own personal protector he calls Crust. Murdering all who emotionally hurt or threaten Vegas, Crust becomes his best pal who has to vie with Vegas’s drunkard business partner and friend as well as his newfound girlfriend who’s infatuated with him.

Sean Whalen is one of the more underappreciated side characters in the last 30 years.  You know the face, but you may not know his extensive filmography.  Most of us horror fanatics adore Whalen in what was likely one of East coast born actor’s most notable roles from early in his career as the wall-crawling, good-hearted, inbred child named Roach from Wes Craven’s “The People Under the Stairs.”  From that film in 1991 to today, Whalen has run the genre gamut as a supporting actor in “Tammy and the T-Rex,” “Waterworld,” Rob Zombie’s “Halloween II,” as well as Zombie’s “3 From Hell” and a slew of other films, made-for-TV movies, and popping up in television series, including the U.S. version of CBS’s Ghosts pilot which I’m still sorely peeved he no longer continued the basement-dwelling, leprosy ghost role.  Now, we’re seeing a whole new side to our favorite side actor who steps into the lead principal role and, also, writes-and-directs his first feature length film with the 2024 comedy-horror “Crust.”  The indie film is cowritten with Jim Wald and is a production between Mezek Films, Moonless Media & Entertainment, Wicked Monkey Pictures, Stag Mountain Films, and the LLC, Crustsock Productions, supported by a crowdfunding campaign that generated nearly 100K dollars from over 600 backers.

A personal project for Whalen, “Crust” came to fruition as an allegorical metaphor for his own depression after a divorce and he plays Vegas Winters, a former child actor who left the industry after the success of his show due to those around him mistreating him or forgetting about him once the show success wore off.  Gloomy-faced, disheveled, and suppressively lethargic and explosively frantic when called for, Vegas is the epitome of depression while co-running a bland laundry with an alcoholic Russ, played by another horror-friendly, long-time supporting actor in Daniel Roebuck (“Final Destination,” “Terrifier 3”).  Audiences will feel for Vegas and his ultimate wish to be left alone as he sends his blood, sweat, tears, and amongst other bodily fluids, into the leftover socks of strangers, but audiences will also be delighted in his return to fervor materialized by a spur-of-the-moment, quirky laundry mat dance routine with his newfound cute-and-cuddly, stiff-sock creature, Crust. Like Daniel, Nila is too entangled in Vegas’s sticky-sock situation as his from-afar admirer turned quickly cemented girlfriend, played by Rebekah Kennedy (“Two Witches,” “Traumatika”), and there ensues the conflict when friend and girlfriend don’t know where they place or stand alongside a sock-monster. Roebuck and Kennedy manage to fiddle the strings of being the irresolute and concerned while not being a total antagonist to Vegas, who himself might not be 100% the hero of the story. “Crust” rounds the big hitting cast with “Sleepaway Camp’s” Felissa Rose and “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’s” Alan Ruck along with William Gabriel Grier, Charles Chudabala, Ricky Dean Logan, Shawntay Dalon, and Zoe Unkovich.

Divided into laundry themed chapters, “Crust” is all about the depression and the stagnation that it entails. The creature Crust is that imaginary hope or need fabricated to pull one out of its depths and talons as a protector and a friendly companion to retreat into when the world around is threatening with a difficulty level of hard. Vegas is bombarded with down-in-the-dumps missiles being reminded of an unpleasant past, an ex that continues to belittle him, and an escape from reality that soon becomes an invasion of privacy. Whalen’s decision to shoot in black and white is a conscious one that eliminates colorful distractions to keep story focus around the characters, driving down the narrative nail into Vegas’s episodic progress that deepens to deprecating d, depths, and to keep blemishes with Crust’s marionette-ways to a bare minimum. That’s not to express that Crust is a mealy patchwork of loose socks and back felt for eyes. Crust construction might be simple in design but effective in applied personification with emotional swings, eyebrow moods, and hand gestures despite the obvious movement limitations that require multiple shots and cuts at different angles to sell its tearful autonomy and aggressive nature to protect. Remember, “Crust” is a comedy-horror with emphasis on comedy and while Whalen’s directorial debut comedy is fettered by a lighter shade of black, there’s a waving playfulness about it, such as Whalen and Crust’s spontaneous choreography, that provides a wake from the satirical black humor and completely submerge the story in surrealism with laughs and heart-wrenching moments.

One of the first, and hopefully many to come, titles a part of the initial Anchor Bay Entertainment revival by Umbrelic Entertainment cofounders Thomas Zambeck and Brian Katz, “Crust” hits the Blu-ray market with distribution assistance from MVD Visual.  The AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition, BD25 has the work cut out for it with the black-and-white presentation that allows for a better decoding bitrate, hovering around easily a high-20 Mbps.  Monochromic anamorphic widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio exhibits cleanly, clearly, and classically in a consistent contrast that balances situational light and shadow where appropriately.  Textures are dullened without color but the picture is crisp without showing fuzziness or compressed without blocky or bandy issue.  Not listed on the back cover, my player detects an English Dolby Digital Stereo 2.0 track.  More talkative than taking action, “Crust” delivers a fine digitally recorded dialogue track through a lossy Dolby compression that while isn’t as an exact replica, it is clear. Yet, dialogue’s separated from the pack, isolated from the caricature ambience of a laundry mat that has settles on a single wash or dryer sound, the exaggerated sounds of exterior paparazzi, and minor action sounds reach the upper audio layer hemisphere, diffusing into virtually the same foreground plane as dialogue rather medium-to-near range background in what is more of a production stemmed, Foley incorporated audio design.  Blu-ray’s bonus features include a Sean Whalen feature length audio commentary track, a Los Angeles premiere Q&A with Sean Whalen, Rebekah Kennedy, Daniel Roebuck, Felissa Rose, and William Gabriel Grier along with Crust puppeteer, Lisa Hinds, and two short comedies about Dorothy post-Wizard of Oz by many, many tragic years of alcoholism, sex, and delusional state of poor Dorothy, written and played by Whalen in “Dorothy:  50 Years Later” and “Dorothy 2:  The Bump and Run.”  Anchor Bay’s releases standard fair within a traditional Amaray case with the image of Whalen, or rather Vegas, the sock-monster Crust, and a trail of speckled blood in a back-and-white laundry mat with no tangible inserts and the same image pressed on the disc but digitally rearranged.  The region free release has a runtime of 102 minutes and is not rated.

Last Rites: Depression sucks, but “Crust” doesn’t in its sticky sardonic theme told simply in genericisms and broad grayscale strokes. Whelan’s first feature is first rate farce with fantastic puppet work and a Whelan, himself, best at self-deprecating his image for what’s good of the story, which is a morsel of his own.

Sean Whalen’s Debut “Crust” Now on Blu-ray!