Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		3.5
Audio		3.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		2.0

Yoga Hosers Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman February 11, 2017

Whatever mind altering substances Kevin Smith has been consuming are really starting to kick in, so forewarned is forearmed for anyone deigning to check out Yoga Hosers, a film which reunites several performers from Smith’s equally bizarre Tusk (most but not all of them playing the same characters they did in Tusk). In the sole supplement (other than the trailer) included on this Blu-ray, Smith talks about how he wanted to fashion a complete feature out of two decidedly supporting characters in Tusk, Colleen Collette (Lily-Rose Depp) and Colleen McKenzie (Harley Quinn Smith). Those who remember more about Tusk than its horrifying central metamorphosis may recall that it was through the apparently tangential connection to two convenience store clerks, the aforementioned Colleens, that allowed wacko investigator Guy LaPointe (Johnny Depp, also on hand as LaPointe in this film) to find the hapless Wallace Bryton (Justin Long, also on hand here, but in a different role). The Colleens are back at work in a Manitoba convenience store called the Eh 2 Zed as the film opens, not exactly thrilled that they’ve become fodder for tabloids courtesy of their connection to the notorious Wallace Bryton case. The two are in fact more interested in developing a band together, and they lock the store closed (with a cheeky cardboard sign on the door indicating one of them is suffering from a urinary tract infection) so that they can jam in the back room with a drummer named Ichabod (Adam Brody). When their high school’s most popular boy Hunter Calloway (Austin Butler), a senior, walks through the door and invites the girls (who are sophomores) to a party, they feel like they’ve won some sort of prize. Unfortunately, a number of intervening events occur, not the least of which is the arrival of tiny Nazis made out of bratwurst and DNA that begin wreaking havoc right and left. Like I said, the mind altering substances Smith has evidently been ingesting are really starting to show their effects.

There’s a loosey-goosey aspect to many of Smith’s films which a lot of fans find endearing, but which can often feel like exercises in silliness, and one’s tolerance for this kind of thing will probably determine how much of Yoga Hosers will entertain, and how much will potentially annoy. The film drifts through a series of seemingly unrelated vignettes in its early going, including the back room jamming sequence and, a bit later, the girls’ interactions with their yoga teacher, Yogi Bayer (Justin Long). With the invitation from Hunter, things seem to be developing that oft cited “narrative arc”, but this being a Smith film, there are still a few detours that accrue.

One of these comes courtesy of the girls’ history class, which provides Smith a fairly long interstitial (in black and white) detailing the supposed background of nefarious Nazis in a pre World War II Winnipeg. As recounted by the girls’ history teacher Ms. Maurice (Vanessa Paradis), a Nazi wannabe named Adrien Arcand (Haley Joel Osment), an actual historical figure shoehorned into the story for obvious reasons, took over the National Unity Party of Canada and starting promoting Nazi ideology in the unlikely location of our neighbors to the north. In Smith’s formulation, Arcand was aided by a mysterious figure named Andronicus Arcane. While the film correctly details the fact that Arcand was arrested and placed in an internment camp during World War II (he evidently “camped out” on a throne built for him by the other prisoners, insisting that he would soon rule Canada once Hitler had invaded), Arcane supposedly disappeared, never to be heard from again (you can probably hear this plot point about to fall, which of course it will).

As if all this craziness isn’t enough, it turns out that Hunter and his buddy Gordon (Tyler Posey) aren’t the presumed horndogs that the girls’ parents think they might be, and in fact might be better thought of as horned dogs, since they worship a certain devilish entity. All of this plays out within the slowly revealed context of tiny sausage shaped entities that begin running amok around the Eh 2 Zed, leading to some absolutely bizarre visuals. Without mentioning any major spoilers, suffice it to say that the side trip through supposed Canadian history ends up playing into the story, and that the girls, along with LaPointe, who shows up to investigate the carnage, manage to save the world once again (if in fact helping LaPointe discover Wallace in Tusk qualifies as a world saving event).

As might be divined by the fact that there are multiple Smiths and Depps involved in this project, there’s a family affair feeling to the proceedings, and in fact the making of supplement included on the Blu-ray has Justin Long talking about this aspect and how much “fun” it is to be on a set with such built in camaraderie. Unfortunately, that “fun” seems to be kind of insular, shared by a winking cast that feels it’s in on some epic joke that sadly hasn’t been adequately shared with the audience. Yoga Hosers is outré by anyone’s standards, but it isn’t ever very effective, either as a comedy or especially as a quasi-horror film. Smith has proven himself to be a really smart and intentionally provocative writer-director, as evidenced by films like Dogma. After looking into the story of Adrien Arcand as I researched some background for this review, I had to wonder if Smith should have simply concentrated on that story instead of this weird and generally unsatisfying accretion of other material.

Yoga Hosers Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Yoga Hosers is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Invincible Pictures with an MPEG-2 encoded 1080p transfer in 2.38:1. This is the first MPEG-2 encoded release I've had in my review queue for quite some time, and this now "ancient" codec combined with this release's lossy Dolby Digital audio might suggest a bargain basement approach, but bitrates are pretty substantial throughout (frequently topping 30 to 35), and the result, while perhaps not quite as sharp and well detailed as some would hope, at least doesn't suffer from any outright compression anomalies. Shot digitally with the Arri Alexa (thank you, Kevin, for including this detail in the closing credits), the palette is bright and even candy coated looking at times, with a prevalence of vivid hues like pinks, reds and yellows and those all pop with considerable energy. Some of SFX work, including the cheekily named Bratzis (think about it), looks a bit soft, but in normal (or even convenient store fluorescent) lighting, fine detail remains strong. Both a black and white sequence as well as a tweaked color flashback later in the film offer somewhat lesser detail levels than the bulk of the presentation.

Yoga Hosers Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Yoga Hosers' Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is the only audio option available on the Blu-ray, and it presents a decently immersive but somewhat unenergetic sounding audio experience. Occasional music (including that by the Colleens) provides a bit of surround activity, as does the "pitter patter" of little Bratzi feet, but there isn't much low end to the proceedings, even in a FX laden sequence late in the film detailing the genesis of the little monsters. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly, but lossy audio along with MPEG-2 compression would seem to indicate this didn't get the deluxe Blu-ray treatment for whatever reason.

Yoga Hosers Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer (1080p; 2:44)


• Extra (1080p; 7:26) is a generically named supplement for a generic EPK, which does at least have some okay interviews and behind the scenes footage.

Yoga Hosers Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

A lot of Yoga Hosers comes off as a kind of "inside joke" that we, the audience, aren't privy to. There are some admittedly fun elements to this gonzo Kevin Smith outing, but nothing ever holds together very well and even the best ideas aren't fully developed, if they're developed at all. A somewhat lackluster technical presentation doesn't help matters, but Smith completists may want to check this out simply for its "bizarreness factor".