Most filmmakers don’t set out trying to make a cult film, and when they do, the results are usually overbearing, arch, and fake. The makers of Greener Grass are absolutely setting out to make a cult film.

Jocelyn DeBoer and Dawn Luebbe do triple duty as writer, director, and co-star. They play Lisa and Dawn, respectively, suburban soccer moms who engage in a passive-aggressive competition, with their husbands and sons as unknowing victims. Dawn lives in a sexless marriage, jealous of Lisa’s much friskier bedroom activities. Meanwhile, Lisa is a perfectionist who pours all of her angst into her sensitive son.

The husbands are vaguely uninteresting and uninterested by design. They live in a town that probably and deliberately resembles the suburban paradise/hell of Tim Burton’s Edward Scissorhands, but everything is more than a bit skewed. For example, the fourth grade teacher Miss Human (The Good Place’s D’Arcy Carden) is the sole survivor of her mother’s murderous family rampage, and she’s written a ditty about it, which the children brightly sing. Everybody drives in golf carts instead of cars. Families dress in coordinated colors.

Then there are the little bits that reveal character. Lisa fills out her kid’s homework in childlike handwriting and mislabels a bison as a shaved cow. Her son is so terrified of the sports that he is forced to play that anytime he brushes against someone or a ball hits his shoulder, he immediately burst into tears and runs to his mom.

The TV plays Saturday Night Live–worthy fake commercial, but unfortunately, most of the humor is absurdist and ridiculous for no discernible reason. All the adults wear braces. One character turns into a dog. Another grabs a soccer ball during a kid’s match, puts it under her skirt, and claims to be pregnant. Everyone congratulates her.

The ludicrousness is pointless because it’s not really based or commenting on anything close to reality, and when it is, it’s so obvious as to be ridiculous. When a group at an infant’s birthday party eat some cookies and simultaneously vomit and then continue to converse as if nothing has happened, it’s pretty much time to throw in the towel. The filmmakers strain for midnight movie status as they overshoot their mark or just plain miss it entirely.

The one continual bright spot is Julian Hilliard, who plays Lisa’s son Julian. Reminding one of a young Peter Billingsley, he manages to build a complete, honest character from the absurdist circumstances surrounding him while possessing a preternatural sense of timing. Every second watching this young actor is a delight.

Other than that, and a few solid laughs, there’s not much to recommend in Greener Grass.