Unpleasant to watch, and peopled with characters ranging from shrill to creepy, this one’s for the kind of hardcore Indie viewer who laughs at the kinds of things that make others reel.

Directed, co-written, and produced by Mark H. Rapaport, the movie steps right up to the line of pedophilia and incest before letting itself off the hook (the pedophile doesn’t consummate his “date” with a teenager and, it turns out, the “brother and sister” are not related by blood).

Hippo (Kimball Farley) is the nickname of a video-game-hooked teenaged boy who, with his step-sister, Buttercup (Lilla Kizlinger), a Hungarian immigrant, lives with a weird and doting mother. The film is set in the 90s, and is meant to be a coming-of-age tale of the two teens. Hippo is mentally unwell, but not in the way that makes one feel sympathetic. He is known for unpredictable, loud fits and a penchant for Medieval weapons. Buttercup is an innocent Catholic and classical music-lover who, nonetheless, is ready to get her deflowering on.

Although gorgeously photographed in rich black and white, the setting is a depressing home on a flat lot (State College, PA is where the movie was shot) in a bleak season. Everything just feels icky. But it’s also going for laughs.

Rapaport says the movie is a “hug to myself,” having grown up with the consequences of sexual repression and a messed-up family. He also calls it a “cautionary tale,” because one can escape monsters and other terrors, but not one’s own DNA.

In other words, the things that I found so difficult to sit through are exactly the director’s point, so we can give him credit for realizing his own vision, and doing so on a micro-budget.

But I was just relieved when it was all over.

Hippo is now in select theaters.