‘Litter Rascals,’ Courtesy of the Alamo

Riffle through the press notices for “Littermates,” a new film by Scott Tinkham and Michael Woloson, and you’ll find squirreled in amongst them the adjective “scrappy.” It’s a word that likely appeals to Michael Kustermann, the CEO for the chain of American theaters, Alamo Drafthouse. The movie is, Mr. Kustermann says, “nearly impossible to fit inside a conventional box,” being the second project Alamo has released under its Alamo Exclusives umbrella. The first? The inelegantly titled rock ‘n’ roll documentary, “Butthole Surfers: The Hole Truth and Nothing Butt.”“Littermates” is less conventional than the standard multiplex fare, but those with a taste for the outré will recognize the inspirations Messrs. Tinkham and Woloson draw on for their end-of-times parable. A clear progenitor is Yorgos Lanthimos’s “Dogtooth” (2009), a movie in which the strictures of parenthood were transformed into the cruelest absurdism. In terms of budget (low) and idiosyncrasy (high), Joel Potrykus’s “Vulcanizadora” (2024) comes to mind, as does Scott Monahan’s “Anchorage” (2023). Apocalypses come in all varieties, as do days spent filming. Should you be curious in this case: Two weeks and a day.“Littermates” is, as is implied by the title, a chamber piece. The setting is a modest isolated cottage in the English countryside. It would be a bucolic place were it not for the sporadic bombings in the distance and the concomitant eddies of smoke. The bespectacled Chester (Oliver Woolf) makes a go of living in isolation during wartime, using the family home as a base for survival. He’s shaggy-haired, fastidious and driven by a vague sense of intellectual purpose — especially when the stray visitor wanders on to his estate. Enter Liam (Joey Bader), the initial member of Chester’s litter.Liam arrives at the premises, bedraggled, bloodied and frightened, a twentysomething who’s been running through the woods in the remnants of what looks to be business attire. When Chester spots Liam from his observation deck, he runs down the stairs, shoots a flare into the sky and proceeds to care for his new charge. There’s pedagogy involved — Liam is given lessons in sounding out words — and whatever socialization is possible under the circumstances. Liam seems hollowed out as if his mind were selectively wiped clean. He’s become a child in an adult’s body.Chester encourages Liam’s good behavior by paying him in “nifties,” tokens that can be redeemed for recreational activities like singing karaoke or playing Connect Four. Liam is content with simple pleasures — putting together a puzzle, say — until a young woman, Mel (Kaylee McGregor), comes crashing onto the scene. She, too, needs reeducating and takes to Chester’s lessons with good will and a sneaking suggestion of sexual attraction. Mel soon begins to chafe under Chester’s authority and becomes frustrated with Liam’s complacency. When she discovers the liquor cabinet, all bets are off.Toward the end of “Littermates” we learn via a videotaped news report that a war is being waged with chemical weapons that disrupt memory function and personality traits, symptoms that will become terminal should they not be treated. Life goes awry for our heroes, as it must, and when Chester is seriously wounded, Mel and Liam are made acutely aware of their limited capacities as thinking individuals. Is there someone out in the wider world capable of guiding them?The picture ends with a wild slapstick flourish that might’ve pleased Buster Keaton, and its entirety is undergirded by a grim, underplayed comedy. How well Messrs. Tinkham and Woloson sustain the illogic of their film is a question: Plot points are wobbly and so, too, is the acting. Still, there’s a core to this imperfect film that makes a hash of its misanthropy. There are better things to come from those involved in “Littermates,” but this ain’t a bad start at all.

‘Litter Rascals,’ Courtesy of the Alamo

‘Litter Rascals,’ Courtesy of the Alamo

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