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I watched this as part of a Gerry Anderson marionation marathon. Like many of the works associated with Anderson, this is a kids' puppet show, so expectations should be calibrated to that type of production.

The problem for me is not the puppets (though they are about as creepy as one would expect): the problem is the voice acting. I can listen to Anderson's other shows and enjoy the audio production; the characters and their voices become familiar and relaxing. Not so with "Torchy: The Battery Boy."

In the first instants of "Torchy," I was confronted with a high-pitched squeal yelling "TORCHY! TORCHY!" (The first seconds of the opening theme.) This does not bode well, as many characters have similarly high-pitched and whiny voices. Arguably, it may not be a terrible show, but the grating vocals are enough to render the viewing/listening experience unpleasant.

I would love to provide a more holistic perspective about the qualities of the show, but I just can't get past the voice acting.

As a Stanislaw Lem fan since I first read his "Cyberiad" at a young age, I am admittedly biased. Lem's sense of humor (largely predicated upon irony) is a refreshing change of pace from some of his literary contemporaries in the field of science fiction--for instance, Philip K. Dick, who breathed "high concept" but often struggled to explore any but the most tortured aspects of human existence. I find that much of sci-fi to this day suffers from a similarly monotonous focus on darker and more dramatic outcomes of scientific progress (think "Dark Mirror"), to the utter exclusion of the more ridiculous or zany types of stories.

In this film, Lem's clever writing combines with Wajda's insightful direction to create an utterly surreal (and at times zany) tone, providing a whimsical approach to what would otherwise be some fairly macabre story elements. It is dark humor with an emphasis on the "humor," with that emphasis being predictably underlined by Bogumil Kobiela's performance.

The limited budget of the production is evident in the set and costume design, though this does not necessarily detract from the film. In my opinion the attraction is the creative use of limited materials, as with most truly innovative or expressive films (as opposed to lavish and extravagantly expensive blockbuster productions that dispense with deeper themes in favor of visual excitement). Some highlights include a psychiatrist's brick wall that seems to breathe in and out, and a 60's-style scanty female outfit that appears to be secured in the front with a strip of duct tape.

Perhaps the most distracting element of the limited budget is the totally asynchronous looping of dialogue. It is abundantly obvious that the actors recorded their dialogue without the benefit of having the film itself to view. Looping was common practice in many European productions of this time period, but to my recollection, even the cheesy Italian horror films of this era (featuring multilingual, often non-Italian, casts) managed to achieve some illusion of synching between ADR and lip movements. It may seem a small complaint but there are several instances where the dialogue is so imperfectly juxtaposed as to mimic the clichéd dubbing of a Godzilla film. This is the primary reason I could not rate the film higher--at a 9 or even 10/10-- but it is certainly no reason not to watch what is otherwise an imaginative and fun production.

Bonus points are awarded for the face-painted hippies and the very shirtless bejeweled surgeons of the future .

I often watch films of dubious quality with the commentary track on, in the hopes that the director will give me a glimmer of some deeper intention or meaning they wished to convey with the film. Having now watched both this, and the first film, "House of 1,000 Corpses," with the accompanying director's commentary, I am pretty confident in my belief that Rob Zombie is just an amateur with enough money and connections to play director whenever he feels like it.

The shame is that RZ is entirely honest about some of the minor goofs in his films, like continuity errors, but he seems entirely oblivious as to the deeper mechanics of storytelling. Characters are one-dimensional, the plot is predictable (other than the finer points of who gets tortured, when and how), and if there is a theme, it is a very confused one. When a "good guy" gets killed and the audience cheers, Zombie mentions on the commentary that he is perplexed; he simply cannot fathom that he has made the villains into heroes because they are the only characters of any depth in the film.

Some may defend this empathetic portrayal of characters that are nothing short of evil, as if RZ is deliberately trying to tell us something about how we conceptualize good and evil, but there is no alternative other than to follow these despicable characters; the confused reaction of the audience seems to say more about the movie's singleminded desire to generate traumatic scenes than anything else. At best this is old ground that has already been better covered by better directors, not the least of which is Wes Craven's "Last House on the Left."

I have seen some truly horrifying/disgusting movies that can at least manage to explore deeper issues or themes, like most of Cronenberg's work, "Salo," or even (I might argue) the much-maligned "Serbian Film." These are all films made by directors that use the horrific material to communicate or reinforce a message. A less viscerally disgusting but distinctly uncomfortable and ethically horrifying cousin would be "Come and See." This film, like its predecessor, has all of the disconcerting gore but no underlying message; it simply exists as a gratuitous display of disconnected scenes that might as well be vignette-style with recurring characters in the vein of "All Hallow's Eve."

I'm sure it was fun to make this movie, and it is definitely a gory thrill ride, so kudos for those elements. People have been producing mindless gory flicks since the 70's and there really is nothing remarkable about this effort, other than the relatively high production value and the fact that Zombie clearly managed to attract some competent cast and crew to support his amateurish effort. Some of the acting is alright, but the scripting is hackneyed and it would take Daniel Day Lewis to make this "real-world" dialogue seem like anything other than uncensored outtakes from "The Osbornes."

If the soundtrack is any indication, Rob Zombie has some pretty good taste in music. It is by far the most redeeming element of the film, and the musical choices are appropriate for their scenes. If all he worked on was the music, then Rob Zombie would be knocking it out of the park. Unfortunately, the rest of this film is a disjointed mess, and listening to the commentary does nothing to dispel the notion that it is a sophomoric premise executed in a mediocre fashion.