The cover may mislead you into thinking that this is a feature-length sex comedy starring Lexx's Xev. Well... it's not, and thank Gosh for that! This DVD is more than you could ask for, and a heck of a nice surprise. "Hellchild" collects four short films, one trailer and two music videos directed by Idaho-born Nick Lyon (same one from Maximilian Shell's "I Love You, Baby"), a very talented guy who works mainly in Germany, where he studied at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg in Ludwigsburg.

The main course is "Hilda Humphrey: A Geeky Nerdy Rebellious Hellchild Slut With a Drug Problem Gone Brainwashed Newborn X" (1997), a 20-minute short with absurdly gorgeous Xenia Seeberg as the main character - a cute-as-a-button family girl who suffers a childhood trauma (her puppy dog is run over by a car) and goes thru all the phases of rebellious puberty, including a slutty and outrageous lifestyle, drug experiences, abortions, a bad marriage and everything that comes with it. The movie is very well done, with a stylized Americana feel (it was shot entirely in Germany) and nice storytelling devices that reminds us the early MTV style (back when "MTV style" was a compliment, that is). The actress' beauty alone makes it impossible to unglue the eyes off the screen for the entire run of the movie; she wears lots of horrid wigs and unflattening make-up, but Xenia's unable to look ugly, no matter what!

But "Hilda Humphrey" isn't the best piece of the pie. The honor goes to the 30-minute "The Fisherman and His Frau", a modern, quasi-trailer trash re-telling of Brothers Grimm's "The Fisherman and His Wife". This story was never touched by Disney, meaning you may not be aware of the plot, so here it is: trying to please his fat, materialistic and perenially hungry wife (played by tranvestite Manuela Riva, the german Divine), a fisherman (played by the FABULOUS actor Gerd Lommeyer) goes out to catch a flounder and finds instead a talking, wish-granting magic fish. The great thing about "The Fisherman and His Frau" is that, even being a modern and comedic take on the subject, retains the dark, classic mood of the European fairy tales - a great style choice, showing us once more that the main problem with the USA is that they don't have a culture to call their own. The exquisite locations are quite a sight as well. At first I thought some scenes were achieved with surreal matte paintings; to my surprise, Lyons reveals in the commentary that it's a REAL place - a coalmine in Germany, with vistas that look like an alien planet.

Next we have "God Box", where a line of believers enter a big box to meet God - or at least Mara Sheeva, a pair of talking lips that reveal if you've been naughty or nice. The film has no real payoff, but I can live with that. In the sequence (or at least the sequence that comes when we select the "Play All" option, cause the menu offers a different order) there's the trailer for "Candy Dance Chant" (now renamed "Karma Noir" and still in production), about a sex pervert, drug addict, drunkard, serial killer AND cop. This film was shot on DV and rendered to look like a George Pratt-painted comic book brought to life. The result is cool, but may be headache-inducing in feature-length form. Parts of this trailer were reused on The Farmer Boys' music video "Here Comes The Pain", also featured in this collection (the other one is "Never Let Me Down Again", with a special appearance by Xenia).

Finally we have the 23-minute "Phal-O-Krat" (a.k.a. "Frankenstein Penis", Nick's preferred title), about the misadventures of a man and his newly implanted 18' penis. But he fails to pay for the operation, so a creepy couple is after him to repo the member. Not that a giant penis is worthly of all that jazz, as our hero learns the hard way (and there's LOTS of puns in this sentence alone!) when he meets a girl who's not exactly what she seems. What could be a bad "Percy"-like joke ends up as an interesting satire about the artificiality of society. The script is so clever I forgive Lyon for actually showing the humongous gregory pecker onscreen.

Extras include commentaries by Lyon on all shorts (except the music videos, and that's a shame cuz I would like to know why one of 'em was "previously banned in Germany" as the cover says) and the trailer for "Devil's Keep" (an adventure about the modern search for the hidden Nazi gold, scheduled for DVD release on September 24, 2002; the disc will include a documentary about Nazi conspiracies. Yummy!).

If you want a copy to quench your thirst for all things Xenia, go to www.indiedvd.com. And if you're interested in more info about Lyon's work, including the original, "censored" version of Hellchild's cover (that credits a XENA Seeberg - he he!), the guy's page is http://homepage.mac.com/nicklyon.