Rabid Grannies

Two eccentric old aunts are having a birthday party. All the party guests are family members that are just after the old bat's money and intend to use the birthday party to both make themselves look better as well as making each other look as bad as possible. The oddball family ensemble consists of a bumbling cowardly priest, a married couple with obnoxious kids, a fat cousin with a very young stripper wife, a female cousin with her lesbian girlfriend, a horny dipstick in a Trans Am and a frigid old cousin that is so conservative she makes Mother Theresa look like a 2 dollar whore. As the aunts start receiving their birthday gifts, a knock at the door sounds the arrival of someone else. The cook's helper answers then the door and there stands a gothic looking grandma with a gift sent by the black sheep of the family, a nephew that was banned from the family and written out of the will for becoming the leader of a Satanic cult. Through the note on the gift he shmoozes the aunts by saying that he wants forgiveness, he knows his presence is not wanted but still desires to give them a unique gift for their birthday. They open the package which contains a pretty box. Thinking that it's a lovely gift, they open it and some demons come out and possess the aunts, who then begin attacking all members of the family and most of the relatives are killed off in various comical ways. The frigid cousin and the lesbian are like the only two people left. They guess that if they destroy the box that they can destroy the demons that came out of it. It works and the aunts return to normal (borrrrrrring!). The next morning police arrive and start collecting the bodies. One of the two kids (the other got torn apart by one of the aunt/demons) wants to go live with the lesbian, because even though his mother survived, she's now a basket case in a straight-jacket. In the last scene, Bertha the frigid cousin starts puking up green slime in the cab ride home, then gets all possessed looking and tears off the cab drivers arm... the end. I have to say that the first half of this movie is slower than dial up internet, almost enough to give up on it before the fun even begins. The second half of the movie picks up with some gruesome special effects and some pretty bloody murders. Well worth the wait. Don't try and make too much sense out of the story, it's relatively insignificant. The only fun in this film is watching two demons run around in flowery dresses killing people in comically terrifying ways that are very reminiscent of "Evil Dead". Ironically, despite the title, the grannies in this film are the victims of demon possession and the rabies virus is never even mentioned. An enjoyable flick... if you have absolutely nothing else to do.

Mother's Day

Mother's Day probably has the most ironic title of any movie ever made. Instead of just slapping a corsage on her chest and letting her order whatever she wants at the local pancake house, Ike and Addley have a special way of showing their motherly affections with rape, murder, and torture. All under her strict guidance of course. The brothers are your typical Deliverance/Texas Chainsaw Massacre dimwits that only know what Mommy has taught them and what they see on TV. Speaking of TV, another irony in this film is that a cheap yet very disturbing movie such as this one makes a quite real and truthful statement regarding the influence of violence in movies and television. Anyway, the story is rather simple, yet still quite effective and goes as such... Three woman form a close bond in college and decide to get together for a ten year reunion. To celebrate, they go camping (?). The two brothers ambush them, bring them to their dilapidated house containing the Charles Manson of all mothers. All three girls are tortured under the strict teachings of their deranged mother (y'know like weight loss exercises). These teaching sessions are weirder than weird. First she gets the sons to make one of the girls sit on a bench and act like she's reading a book so that they can be taught how to properly attack a woman in a park. Then they make her dress up like a little girl so that one of the sons can be trained to attack and violently rape her. This torture is intended for all three girls, but after the first one dies from their violent training exercises, the other two escape, gear up like Rambo and extract their revenge. They manage to kill the brothers and suffocate mom with a pair of inflatable tits. The end. A side story that never really made any sense to me is that the mother often refers to "Queenie" who is supposedly mom's twin that was born deformed and covered with hair, but is still alive, living in the surrounding woods. After the girls kill their captors and escape, they are attacked by the elusive Queenie, who clearly looks like a man covered in moss or something. Made in 1980, this film has some very interesting trivia to it. First of all, it was being filmed on the other side of the lake at the same time that the original "Friday the 13th" movie was being made. They expected Mother's Day to achieve a better success than Friday the 13th due to it's being much more graphic.... they were wrong. Also, the house that was used for the main part of the film had been vacant for about 15 years. When the film makers decided to use it, they discovered the dead body of the owner of the house inside, having been murdered. Even more gruesome is that the body was actually used as a prop in the making of the film!!!! Hey, you gotta save as much money as you can when making a cheap 80's slasher film. There just wasn't much room in the budget for props, I guess. This movie was is every video store when I was young, but finding it these days is a little difficult, but well worth the effort.

Redneck Zombies

Some idiot is driving down a dirt road smoking a joint with his dog, supposedly attempting to deliver a few barrels of toxic waste. The scene is now obviously set for a movie from Troma. Toxic waste, bad acting, and the appearance of being filmed with a home movie camera. Anyway, the guy loses the barrel, a fat redneck finds it and uses it for an an alcohol still, therefore making toxic moonshine. One by one, these rednecks start becoming toxic zombies. Fortunately for the story, there are a group of campers nearby that make for some tasty vittles. This movies starts out quite comically with the stereotypical rednecks being their weird little country selves, but about halfway through the film it just turns into outright gore. Troma movies can be pretty gross, but this one is totally disgusting. Not much plot, really. Just colorful characters and lots of gore. Absolutely do NOT invest any time trying to understand anything in this movie, for it just isn't relevant. Just sit back and enjoy the humorous zombie make-up, cheap special effects and non funny one liner jokes.

The Children

The Children is another wonderful yet practically impossible movie to find. It's one of Troma's least popular movies (at least in comparison to "Toxic Avenger" and "Class of Nuke 'em High) I can't imagine why because it's a jewel of of movie. It's a totally classic movie featuring Troma's most patented plots concerning nuclear waste. A school bus is bringing happy singing kids home and passes through a suspicious yellow cloud. We learn that a nearby nuclear facility has had an uncontainable leak of toxic waste. The bus and children are not arriving home as scheduled and when the school bus is finally located off to the side of the road, no bus driver, no children. Pretty soon, the youngsters are seen walking around in a trance-like state and have mysterious black fingernails. When parents go to hug them, the parent begins to smoke, burn and are eventually reduced to a blistered pile of goo that sort of resembles a human. The children hug and melt parents, siblings, baby sitters, etc. for most of the movie (very cheesy special effects that are really side splitting). Pretty soon the problem is recognized and the children are exterminated. All seems well, but soon afterwards when the one of the main characters' wife gives birth... it has mysterious black fingernails. Much like the movie "Village of the Damned", this film has a special kind of creepiness to it because it uses innocent looking children as murderous monsters. Well worth seeking out!

Killer Condom

This is another gem from Troma. A little different though, it's in french, hopefully with subtitles and actually had an air of quality to it that most Troma movies lack, due to the fact that H.R. Giger (artist, most popular for having designed the creature in the high budget film Alien) was recruited to design the Killer Condom. Anyway, the story goes... a man in a sleazy motel gets his penis bitten off and the woman performing fellatio on him is the presumed culprit. She's soon exonerated due to many other attacks on different men's penises around town. Inspector mackaroni, a gay chain smoking sleuth with one testicle is on the prowl for what's attacking men all over town. They soon discover vicious, hungry organisms that look like condoms and are biting off weenies left and right. That's right, it's the rubber that rubs you out. The condoms are hilariously fanged and can even run. Inspector Mackaroni soon discovers that these creatures are being genetically manufactured by a woman scientist with a hatred for men, especially gay men (I guess if one penis makes her mad, then two penises should really piss her off.) It's a very funny film with a lot of laughs and definitely worth seeking out.

Class of Nuke 'em High

Class of Nuke 'em High is one of Troma's greatest hits. For those of you who don't know what Troma is... it's a production company that for a while had their own actors to star in most of their early films. Troma also buys and reproduces old and otherwise lost cult films. Their also known as the Troma Team. Some of their more recent self produced films have been beyond awful, even for cult fiends. They certainly do have a few very entertaining movie gems though, but the rest look like they were filmed with a simple camcorder with some of the worst acting ever. As always, it's a matter of taste. But the fact remains that Troma has an undeniable cult following and deserves it's rightful position among the strangely elite. Class of Nuke 'em High is a great movie with a really fun plot. As with most of Troma's movies, this one centers around the topic of nuclear waste. A nuclear plant that is next door to Tromaville High School begins to leak toxic waste and starts turning teenagers into violent cretins. A gang of thugs start selling pot that is grown out of toxic chemical waste and when a Warren and his girlfriend Chrissy smoke a joint at a party, they start undergoing strange happenings. Warren turns into a green drooling sort of disgusting superhero, that is compelled to fight crime and his girlfriend Chrissy belches up a weird wormlike creature that gets flushed down the school commode and ends up in a barrel of toxic waste where it grows to an enormous size. When a gang of thugs (The Cretins) get kicked out of school for violence and drug pushing, they take revenge by trashing the school. Unbeknownst to The Cretins, there is a huge, tall, slimy, worm thing in the school that seems pretty pissed off (maybe because he's protecting his "mommy"). The worm thing eats Cretins left and right and when it gets it's tentacles on Chrissy (Mommmiee...), Warren finds a laser and beams it at wormy the thing. It lets Chrissy go and everybody gets out (well, most everybody). Moments later, wormy thing explodes, school explodes too and creates a lot of really happy students (school's out!!!) It's reading, writing and radiation! Great fun!