A Monkey Movie Report

I found this little 'so bad it's good' gem on the Roku channel called Pub Hub. Don't believe the blurbs on the poster, this film stinks. But since the acting it so bad, the script so awful, the 1970's music, clothes, and sets so awful, it becomes almost good. And it's a shame that it's so bad because it's got a really chilling premise.

Stock '70's horror movie characters that include a hard charging business man and his slutty trophy wife, his daughter and her headstrong 'stick it to the man' boyfriend, and the alcoholic wife (played by Shelley Morrison who would later play Karen's sassy maid on Will and Grace) and her weak ineffectual doctor husband (played by a young Sorrell Booke best known as Boss Hogg on the Dukes of Hazzard) who works for the hard charging business man run headlong into five kids who survive a horrific car crash. The kids turn out to be from a mental institution, turns out they're mentally deranged criminally insane brats. One is a military fetishist, another is a fire bug, another is a cross dressing teen (played by Leif Garret who would later go on to become a bitter has been drug addicted former child actor) who has delusions of grandeur, another is a religious whack job who thinks she's a nun, and the last one is a little hypochondriac. And finally rounding out the cast is the simpleton caretaker (played by John Durren who also wrote the script) of the mountain mansion where all the action takes place. And yes, the simpleton keeps rabbits as pets in the film.

After causing the horrific car crash that enables them to escape the clutches of the mental health authorities, the kids make their way to the mountain mansion owned by the hard charging businessman. Slowly they start killing off the adults who they fear will send them back to the loony bin. In truth, I hated the adult characters so much that I would have helped these brats murder them even if it meant they'd kill me when we finished off the grown ups.

The murder scenes are laughable. Most of them are filmed in slow motion and they feature music that is the least scary horror film music ever, unless you find someone playing a saw scary that is. I guess the director was going for creepy and eerie but what he ended up with was the opposite of that.

The film features a few 'sexy' scenes that are the least sexual ever to be committed to film. The slutty trophy wife tries to seduce the simpleton and when she gets caught by her step daughter they end up cat fighting. The cat fighting has more sexual tension than the previous seduction scene. Later the daughter and her boyfriend make sweet, sweet '70's love and their 'passion' is nothing more than a severe boner killer, in other words it will make you want to never have sex again. And when the slutty trophy wife tries to seduce the step daughters boyfriend, well, let's just say it's about as sexy as watching your grandparents make the beast with two backs.

The jarring camera angles, the awful porno movie soundtrack, the bad acting, the stereotypes, the overt winking nods to the hip trends of the time period all serve to sink this film. It's like a time capsule of mid '70's awfulness. But if you love cheesy bad films that make you laugh when they're supposed to be scaring you, then this film is for you. It's only 70 minutes long but it feels like it goes on forever, so you'll get your money's worth.