Darlene, voice of Beverly D'Angelo, is terrified by the goings-on in "Hair High." Click photo for larger image.

Fans of those quirky and innovative animation festivals know all about the self-described "twisted flicks" of Bill Plympton. He's the writer, director and animator behind dozens of art-house shorts who turned down a seven-figure offer from Disney to animate "Aladdin" because he didn't want the Big Mouse Corp. to own the rights to his characters.

"Hair High," opening today at the Downtown Harris Theater, is 78 minutes of Plympton's exaggerated forms and fantasy sequences. Set in a 1950s world of anatomically incorrect torpedo bras, towering bouffants and pompadours with minds of their own, it's the story of Cherri and Spud, an unlikely teen couple whose prom-night adventure detours into a frantic car chase and a crash into Echo Lake. Exactly one year later, their re-animated remains take their rightful place as ghostly king and queen of the prom.

		'Hair High' Voiced by: Sarah Silverman, Eric Gilliland. Director: Bill Plympton. Rating: Not rated, PG-13 in nature for graphic animated violence and scenes of peril. Web site: www.hairhigh.com/

An original rockabilly soundtrack augments Plympton's odd angles and distorted perspective, and key voices are provided by comedian Sarah Silverman, actors Dermot Mulroney, David Carradine and Keith Carradine and superstar animator of "The Simpsons" Matt Groening.

That's what's good about "Hair High." Here's what's bad: It plays like a seven-minute "Spike and Mike" short, grotesquely stretched into a feature-length motion picture. Much like some "Saturday Night Live" skits ineffectively turned into movies, "Hair High" is a collection of cool short sequences stitched together with slow-moving filler.

Keep the kiddies at home, and if your idea of "animation" is "The Lion King," you might want to stay there with them and pop "Finding Nemo" into the DVD player. This is animation on a budget intended for teen and adult cult followers of the illustrated underground. "Hair High's" greatest strengths are Plympton's distinctive animation style, cool gross-out sequences and send-ups of '50s teen-tragedy pop-song melodramas. Like many of Plympton's shorts, its greatest weakness is an inconsistent story line that leaves you snoozing until the next cool set of pictures.