Year: 2015
Director: Bryan Carberry & Clay Tweel

I mentioned this film at the recent clique meeting and was surprised that no-one else had a) seen it or b) believed that it wasn’t something I’d just made up. As stories go, it does appear to be the ramblings of a balloon juice addict but truth is way weirder than fiction.

Mr John Wood loses his leg in a car accident, possibly while as high as a kite, and takes said limb home with him when he leaves the hospital. It ends up in storage, inside of all things a BBQ grill and due to his recreational drug use the payments aren’t kept up. As a result, the contents, including the leg, fall into the hands of local character, Shannon, who sees that the leg is his rightful property. So begins a legal and bizarre struggle over who owns John’s leg. Alongside this runs John’s relationship with his aggrieved mother who has had to suffer his druggy behaviour and isn’t sure she wants him, let alone the leg, back in her life.

The more ridiculous aspects of the situation are a backdrop to the nature of semi-celebrity with Shannon, like a real life Homer Simpson, charging a dollar a look at the BBQ grill where he found the leg which leads to reality TV and a Storage Hunters knock off TV show. Yet it’s also about John’s loss, what the disputed limb means to him not just physically and mentally and his shot at redemption.

This isn’t the freak show or laughing at hicks that you think it’ll be – ok, there is some of that but you even root for the villains in the end

Might appeal to people who enjoyed:

Some of Louis Theroux’s Weird Weekends before he turned a bit more serious or celebrity focussed.

It’s on Netflix or on demand services