Review: "Bellflower" (2011)

Evan Glodell, who stars in, writes and directs here in "Bellflower," his incendiary, deceivingly micro-budget debut, plays a twenty-something slacker named Woodrow who sits around all day with his best friend Aiden (Tyler Dawson) in blistering Southern California, dreaming of the impending apocalypse, assembling flamethrowers in its wake. 
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But before the two can bask in their "Mad Max" fantasies, Woodrow falls for the brash, invigorating Milly (Jessie Wiseman) at a spontaneous cricket-eating contest of all places and for their first date, the two take a road trip to Texas without so much as a change of clothes. 
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But nearly as quickly as they hit it off, the couple soon become an estranged, volatile pair, lighting a match in this propane tank of a film, which could perhaps best be described as the first misogynist revenge-fantasy of the mumblecore movement. 
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Much has been made of the film's brazen, violent misogyny, but is-it-or-isn't-it debates are pretty much moot, because "Bellflower," through all of its shifts and starts, flamethrowers and guns, bacon and beer, is a film about the cruelty, aggression and unyielding anguish of rejection - the ecstasy and then the agony of the opposite sex. In short, the answer is yes.
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Like a meatheaded, rage-induced version of "(500) Days of Summer", the film examines the misery of the break-up, though with less cartoon birds and far more blood. And so as if watching a fuse slowly dissipate, the film burns to its fever-pitch eruption of male empowerment, climaxing into a berserk volley of sexual power plays and a declaration of one of the characters to live like 'Lord Humongous', the masked, domineering villain of the oft-referenced "The Road Warrior." 
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Shooting locally in the Ventura valley with a scrap-heap of personal finances (about $17,000), the film represents startling use of ingenuity and veracity either reserved for financially-backed veterans or a gang of impudent twenty-something adrenaline-junkies, as Glodell and his crew of personal friends apparently are.  
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Utilizing their highly modified cameras and shooting in blinding high-exposure and shallow-focus, the film feels very much as if that impending doomsday isn't merely around the corner, but currently ongoing. 
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If the full-blooded brutality and rage of "Bellflower" proves hard to swallow, (not to mention the uneven performances) if nothing else, the film, ever-interesting and wildly adventurous, is a frightening, pulls-no-punches, deeply personal manifestation that, veracious or deplorable (depending on your mood, relationship status, gender) is an audacious, virulent and inexpungeable work. [B-]