I love anthology films, mostly because I have a short, ferret-like attention span and such films appeal to me. But they kind of faded into the background somewhere around the death of Amicus International and the ill-fated Twilight Zone Movie, but don't worry because David Wain, Ken Moreno, the whole Wet Hot American Summer / The State / Stella crew and a couple of well-known celebrities who loved Wet Hot American Summer enough to sign up for this film bring to us The Ten, a biblically-charged selection of (maybe, possibly) ten interconnected short stories that surprisingly don't take the subject of religion to task, but instead take their premises to the most ridiculous extreme. And like many omnibus films, some work better than others.

My comedy crush Paul Rudd stars as our narrator, who exists in a black, existential void, occupied with a list of commandments engraved upon giant prop stones, his icy wife Famke Janssen and his adulterous love interest Jessica Alba. Now, without a proper framing device (Rudd ain't no Ralph Richardson), we're introduced one by one to the cast of characters. There's Stephen Montgomery, who has become a sitcom superstar after surviving a near-death experience skydiving without a parachute, his fiancé Kelly LaFonda (Winona Ryder) who leaves him because she just can't love a man stuck in the ground who then runs into the arms of an emotionally distant ventriloquist dummy in a segment that's just plain creepy - mainly because I just can't trust a puppet, but that's me. 

In a standout segment, Joe Lo Truglio and Liev Schreiber play neighbors who attempt to one-up each other by purchasing as many CAT-Scanners as possible, causing a problem when dozens of children end up dead due to radiation poisoning. Also, Ken Moreno, playing the incompetent Dr. Glenn Richie, gets sent to prison after leaving a pair of scissors in a patient's body as a goof - not an accident, but a prank. While Dr. Richie is in prison trying to schedule his daily sodomy sessions, Gretchen Mol is (literally) finding Jesus in a segment that takes Y Tu Mamá También down a peg or two. Fucking take that, Alfonso Cuarón! 

While it's probably an impossibility to raise (or lower, if you're a jerk) itself to the level of the previous Wet Hot American Summer, The Ten is rather inconsistent, but even when the bits clearly don't work, they still hold enough interest to keep the film from grinding to a halt. Ken Moreno trying to drop his prison rapist for a much more compatible sexual assailant? Well, it's strongly acted, and well shot, but it just isn't particularly all that funny. And hell, if you're going to have each story connect to the others, not just thematically but also in terms of story and characters, why not just unify it into an actual oddball narrative rather than present it anthology-style, with Paul Rudd just running off a list? And let's not forget the extended animated poo-joke that, despite featuring some fantastic cartoonin' and the presence of H. Jon Benjamin, is still an extended, animated poo-joke. 

But hey, like all anthology films and especially with this film where we have ten individual stories, as soon as you're sick of one segment, it's already done, and we're on to the next bit. Anthology films! What a great format.

Presentation
I was about to go into a ramble about how the film's visual presentation isn't a pretty one due to its low-budget, obviously-shot-on-video origins, but checking the Internet Movie Database suggests that The Ten was actually shot on film with a five million dollar budget. Now, five million dollars might not be that big of a deal when it comes to moviemaking, but I write movie reviews, so it sounds like a huge goddamn deal to me. Schizopolis was filmed on a quarter of a million dollars in 1996 and it looks great, while The Ten looks like an FMV segment from a 1996 CD-ROM adventure game. 

Oh, and don't get too excited about the advertised DTS soundtrack that's listed on the back of the box, because it doesn't exist. But what you do get is the standard 5.1 comedy soundtrack. There's music in the beginning and end credits you see, so you get a little surround sound bookends. It's all that you would want, need, or deserve considering the material.

Extras
A few of the features land purely in the shtick category, such as the first episode of David Wain's internet sitcom Wainy Days, along with an interview with David Wain, Paul Rudd and Ken Moreno, but there is a huge amount of fun when it comes to the commentary. Structured to be just as conceptual as the previous feature, the track features David Wain, Paul Rudd and Ken Moreno and in addition to that, a Jazz bassist and David Wain's parents are present throughout as well. Now what makes this not a complete waste of time is the fact that Wain's parents are honest enough to call their son out on unfunny, uninteresting bits - and they're quite accurate to boot! 

For Ten superfan(s), there's over 55 minutes of deleted scenes, which are thankfully broken up by segment. If you don't like the segment, you can skip out on the deleted material with relative ease. There's also a fluffy making-of, which, by the way, is just behind-the-scenes footage rather than an actual making of, and a collection of ringtones & wallpaper for all you DVD-ROM fans who still care about things like this. I don't get to have fun with any of that because I refuse to use telephones. 

Goddamn telephones.

The Bottom Line
David Wain and crew continue to make little polarizing comedies, which is a good thing in concept, at least; even as a huge, dorky fan of his previous film, I can't fully endorse The Ten as some sort of overlooked gem of a comedic romp. While the film is well put together, there are a few bombs in its line-up. Add to that a sub-par presentation and an overabundance of “wacky” extras and you end up with a disc that will probably be stuck in your Netflix queue for a while, regardless of your interest. One day you might get around to it, but then again that copy of Leprechaun 2 finally went from “Very Long Wait” to “Now.”