Grotesk - Kampf ums Überleben

Hilarious looking over-the-top 'punkers' terrorize and kill an innocent family, only to be stalked by a vengeful deformed son who was being kept in a secret room of the house. Just when it seems that this film is rolling into its conclusion, Tab Hunter makes an out-of-nowhere entrance, marking the starting point of twenty more excruciating minutes. GROTESQUE, which to this point was merely somewhat painful, now crosses the "near-lethal" line.

Throwaway horror bunkum, and a sad example of how its once-promising star, Linda Blair, was somehow reduced to being a fixture in sub-B material.

3.5/10

Grotesque (1988) is a truly weird slice of cheesy 80s horror that suffers from something of an identity crisis: the film doesn't adhere to a single sub-genre, but is a strange concoction of home invasion horror, monster movie, and revenge flick, all topped off with an absolutely insane double-twist ending. The result is far from what you would call brilliant film-making, but it is definitely loopy enough to provide an entertaining time for those who actively seek out B-movie strangeness.

Director Joe Tornatore quickly sets the unpredictable tone for his film, beginning with a film-within-a-film prologue, after which he introduces us to close friends Kate and Lisa (B-movie favourites Linda Blair and Donna Wilkes) who, while driving to visit Kate's parents at their remote mountain retreat, run into a spot of bother with a gang of punks (assorted rejects from Class of 1984 and Mad Max, whose number includes the unmistakable Robert Z'dar) before hastily making their escape.

During the night, however, the punks find their way to the house, break in, and slaughter the occupants, mistakenly believing there to be a fortune hidden somewhere in the property; what they find instead is hideously deformed man-child Patrick (Bob Apiza), the family secret, who understandably ain't too happy to see the uninvited guests. Angry Patrick goes on the rampage, tracking down and killing the punks one by one, but before he can take care of their leader Scratch (Brad Wilson) and his bitch Shelly (Michelle Bensoussan), the ugly oaf is shot dead by a posse who believe him to be the one responsible for all the dead folk back home.

At this point the film feels like it has reached a natural end, but it ain't over yet: Kate's Uncle Rod, a successful plastic surgeon, turns up on the scene and, after a spot of very dull and inefficient police procedure that allows Scratch and Shelly to walk free, decides to take the law into his own hands. This insane revenge finale, which packs a neat surprise, sees the film bouncing back in fine style, and then to cap it all, Tornatore tacks on a completely loopy ending featuring—believe it or not—Frankenstein's monster and the Wolfman!!!

As you can probably tell, Grotesque is utterly bonkers trash from start to finish, but with its atrocious punks, some half decent violence (best bit: a punkette having her spine snapped against a tree), cool vengeful freak Patrick, unpredictable action, and a jaw-droppingly silly finale, it's just too much fun to ignore.

6.5 out of 10, rounded up to 7 for IMDb (although it would have been a fully-fledged 7 or higher had Wilkes or Blair shown some skin!).

Matt and I have seen alot of really crappy movies together. We always have a good time. Or at least we DID until our (ex)friend Ron loaned us this one. We've used the database to check out the background on lots of these movies. This one made us register so we could warn others!

There were endless, pointless scenes of crazed people running through murky woods. This is not as bad as it may seem - at least this was a break from some of the worst dialogue ever scribbled on scraps of paper in the bathroom. To be fair, there were two good, albeit brief, moments in this flick. One - A terrorized victim glares at the villains and accuses them of being scum, to which the ringleader replies leeringly "It's a scummy world!" Two - The deformed, heartbroken nephew of two of the victims picks up one of the female attackers and snaps her spine against a pine tree. These moments are not worth wasting the longest 80 minutes of your life. Just say "NO!".

I did like what one reviewer said about this film's plot drunkenly staggering all over the place. It does. I first saw this movie, like others I review on IMDb, when I was a kid, on the USA network. I saw it from the beginning to the part when the dad gets clubbed by the hoodlums, and then my mom turned it off, saying, "you don't need to see that". Then I think we watched COPS or something. I remember it was on USA's Saturday Nightmares. Well, I just moved to a new town, and the local video store had a worn out old copy of this movie so I rented it. I saw a few parts I had remembered and some I didn't, but the bottom line is it's a good movie. There is some truly bad acting, and some violence that is just plain mean. There are also some really stupid plot holes, but if you like '80's horror, then this is not too bad. The plot does jump around a bit; the whole thing flashes around like it's the plot to some big network action pilot. Also containing stupid dialog and an out-of-place ending(but some truly exploitative violence), this is a good film for any '80's horror buff. Oh, and the Frankenstein/Wolfman ending is only on the TV version. Whoever has a tape of that TV version should treasure it I guess. Three stars.

The star of "The Exorcist" Linda Blair brings along her best friend to visit her movie makeup effects expert father and mother at their house deep in the woods.Along the way they have a chance encounter with a gang of murderous punks.The anarchists break into the house and murder everybody there.While searching for the money the punks stumble onto a hidden room containing a deformed man called Patrick,who enjoys spilling blood of the villains."Grotesque" is grotesque indeed.There is enough gore and perversity to keep you occupied in its' short eighty minute running time.'Maniac Cop' Robert Z'Dar has a small cameo as one of the punks.Overall,if you are a fan of late 80's horror you can't go wrong with "Grotesque".7 out of 10.