From “Last Kiss” to “I Want My Baby Back,” songs of teen tragedy lent a death-obsessed shadow to the jangling beats of 1950s and ’60s rockabilly. Bill Plympton’s “Hair High” brings the prom night car accidents and the lethal games of chicken to the big screen in animated form. But if you’re expecting family-friendly fare from this cartoon, then you don’t know Bill Plympton.

One of America’s premier animators, Mr. Plymtpton follows his Tex Avery inclinations all the way down the rabbit hole and into his id. Worms hatch from brains. A French kiss turns into an exchange of psychedelic vomit. A football mascot develops a jumbo case of priapism after guzzling an under-the-counter aphrodisiac. Of course, you’d be expecting all this if you caught the film’s opening credits featuring a gleeful jitterbug by two flies doing the jive in a pile of their own vomit.

The story is beside the point. Two teens on their way to the prom stop at a diner and learn the tragic tale of the love triangle between Spud, Rod, and Cherrie. All tsunami pompadours, interplanetary beehive hairdos, epic football games, and chain-smoking science teachers (one of whom literally coughs his guts out during class), “Hair High” is a bit slow moving from a story point of view. But Mr. Plympton’s spectacular drawings delight in twisting the human body inside out, and his hand-drawn lines jitter and shake as if they’re wired on caffeine.

Unfortunately, the self-distributed “Hair High” hasn’t made its money back yet, despite a celebrity voice cast including Sarah Silverman and “Simpsons” creator Matt Groening. That’s a tragedy for this director, who does it all himself and makes the most disgusting, perverted, wonderfully crafted movies that are like nothing you’d expect from a guy whose short films regularly show up nominated on Oscar night.