The comedic musical fantasy Patch Town focuses on a lonely man named Jon (Rob Ramsay), who slaves away in a factory harvesting kids from cabbages, who are frozen as dolls and sold to kids around the world. The factory is run under the watchful eye of the “Child Catcher” Yuri (Julian Richings), whose toymaker of a father invented the technology that turns these cabbage kids into dolls. When Jon finds out about his adoptive mother Bethany (Zoie Palmer), Jon enlists Sly (Suresh John) to help him, his wife Mary (Stephanie Pitsiladis), and baby daughter escape into the outside world and start a new life. However Yuri and his henchman Kenny (Ken Hall) are right on their tail, with Yuri having plans of his own for Bethany and her daughter Avery. Patch Town is an expansion of the 2011 short of the same name, with many of the short’s cast members (including Rob Ramsay and Julian Richings) returning for the feature. The film takes inspiration from Russian folklore, which featured stories about kids being born in in cabbage patches. I also wouldn’t be surprised if there was some inspiration from the Cabbage Patch Kids line of dolls from the 1980s. Patch Town is probably most notable for its highly stylized visuals and musical numbers, written by Evil Dead the Musical‘s Christopher Bond. I never thought that I would see a film that features, prominent Canadian character actor, Julian Richings breaking into song, though admittedly he doesn’t have the best range. The film also features many humorous visuals, ranging from the henchman Kenny’s sinister hand movements to an entire army of people dressed as Santa Claus. Overall, I have to say that Patch Town was an enjoyable comedic fantasy.8 | LIKED IT
