So what exactly is Darkon? Well, it’s a make believe land like Middle Earth or Unbaptized Baby Purgatory, and it was created by guys in suburban DC with boring jobs – almost 2,000 to be exact, all of them a part of their own sub-Darkon nations and, occasionally, species. One weekend a month they dress up like Knights of Monty Python’s round table and beat each other senseless with foam swords and other squishy medieval weaponry. It’s like an extremely interactive (and expensive) game of dungeons and dragons. The rest of the year, they do your taxes and help mix paint colors for you at Lowe’s. You could live next door to one and not even know it.

As an exposé on a relatively unknown group of eccentrics, the film does a standup job of telling a balanced story. These folks may be weird as hell, but they’re also sweet with their children and disarmingly honest about the disappointments in life that led them to find fulfillment in role-playing. Between these candid interviews and the gorgeous score, Darkon is, on occasion, a stirring film. Then they show clips of people speaking made-up languages and clearly rehearsed fake death-monologues, and it’s just kind of funny. Lead Darkonian Skip Lipman’s real-life son might actually be the film’s highlight. The little boy’s incoherent Red Bull-fueled tangents and energetic swordsmanship provide much-needed breaks from the denser scenes of improvised Olde English.

Darkon does prompt the same question as most documentaries of this nature: why exactly did these people volunteer for this kind of exploitation? Sure, they’re portrayed as the charming and heartfelt characters that they probably are, but they’re also exposed as seriously insane. And that’s the only reason people are going to get a kick out of this film. If you do check it out, head over to IFC’s increasingly whimsical site and click on the Ye Olde Name Generator feature. After answering five questions as truthfully as possible, it turns out that my Darkon name is “Malnakur, Protector of the Hole of Glory.” No joke.