TERROR TOONS
PLOT-Two murderous characters from a weird animated DVD come to life and terrorize a group of friends in a house.
VIOLENCE-Fulla gore, this one. Guts are ripped out, heads are chopped off, brains are removed, and a person is sawed in half.
SEX/NUDITY-A very brief breast shot when a girl gets out of the bath. No sex.
WHY I LIKED IT-This was one of the most original horror movies I've ever seen. I've been watching shot-on-video movies for several years now, and none of them have have been filled with as much imagination and creativity as TERROR TOONS. I didn't know what to expect from this, all I knew was that it was very low-budget and it had something to do with killer cartoons. Unlike Fred Olen Ray's EVIL TOONS, the title characters in TERROR TOONS are prominently featured in the film, and do all the killing throughout. Everything about this production was incredible. The costumes, the lighting, the sets, the acting, the effects, the camera work, the editing...all of it. This was one of those movies that made me want to go out and make my own! I loved it. Since it was made for $2,300 and shot over a period of 3 days, you might expect things to look cheap as hell. Wrong. It's a bizarre cross between ITCHY & SCRATCHY, GWAR, and BEETLEJUICE. I never knew what to expect. One minute a spine is being ripped out, the next...a superhero is squashing the brain of a giant monkey. There's a drag queen too. Again, an amazing movie that shows what low-budget filmmaking can really do if enough imagination and talent is involved.
DOWNSIDE-I almost hate myself for saying this, but I think there should have been more nudity in the film. The beginning of it was a lot like one of those '80s "slumber party" horror flicks where the girls all get naked. There was a strange "strip ouija" scene in TERROR TOONS in which the girls would have to take off an item of clothing, but more clothes would inexplicably appear in the place of what came off! I didn't get it. I know the director couldn't pay the actors, so maybe they didn't wanna show their underwear or perhaps more. But that was very strange to see.
MEMORABLE SCENES-One of the Terror Toon monsters rips out a person's insides and controls her like a ventriliquist's doll. The way this was filmed was quite bizarre, and highly effective. It looked creepy, like something from a nightmare. Well done indeed.
DVD NOTES-There's a bunch of great stuff on this disc, the kind of extras that people like me wanna see. You get a "making of" piece, interviews with the cast and crew, a piece devoted to how the visual effects were done, and bloopers (most of which are also repeated at the very end of the film itself). Definitely worth a look.
(Film Reviewed August 2002, DVD Reviewed September 2005)
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