The Granny

The people who have reviewed THE GRANNY here are obviously NOT horror movie fans, and thus should stick to reviewing films like FREE WILLY, PART 10. Anyway... What an improvement for Luca (GHOULIES, ROCKULA) Bercovici, who wrote, directed and co-stars! THE GRANNY is wonderful, tasteless fun and easily one of the best direct-to-video horror films of the decade.

Stella Stevens is not only the Granny of the title, but the reigning Granny of B-grade direct-to-video flicks. She's terrific chewing the scenery as Anastasia Gargoli, mother to some rather objectionable jerks who (along with their children) are trying to kill her for her inheritance. The only person kind to Granny is her bastard niece Kelly (well played by soft-core queen Shannon Whirry). Before dying, a magical elixir that promises eternal life is injested, and ends up backfiring. Since Kelly is screwed out of an inheritance, Granny returns as a cannibalistic zombie to settle the score.

THE GRANNY is thankfully played out in tongue-in-cheek fashion, so we get a lot of black comedy (such as gags involving incest, decapitation, castration, grave robbing and more). Gore FX are effective and creative, but pretty mediocre. The performances are campy and fun.

On the negative side, the tone of the movie (fluctuating from camp to drama to comedy to horror) may turn some off, and the (open) ending is unnecessary. But in a movie with this much energy and good things going for it, those aspects are quite easy to overlook.

I went to the video shop to rent a really cheesy horror flick, and boy did I get one. The Granny caught my attention because it stars one-time beauty and decent actress Stella Stevens, and looked like it might be fun. Alas, Stevens is barely recognizable, and the show is not only not fun, it is agonizing to watch. I rate it -**, and recommend it as a candidate for worst movie ever made.

So this is one seriously schlocky horror comedy and I do reckon that if you don't appreciate the comedy or tone right away then you'll probably find it to be a bit of a horrible viewing experience. However if you do enjoy it knowing it's not at all meant to be taken seriously you might have a lot more fun as it a lot of laughs! So I just love Shelly Stevens in it, she was just epic and her titular character gave zero craps and spouted the foulmouthed one-liners like she was Freddy Krueger, and I found the scene especially hilarious when she's still a regular old lady and was choking on the word dime while tearing into her horrible moneygrubbing family, but I thought she was even funnier still when she was resurrected as a demon granny who just loved being pure evil!! She really gave it her all and it's a good example of just one performance carrying and raising an otherwise unremarkable movie above the average and for me, even making it a bit of a hidden gem. I love what a great job they did of making granny's family just the worst kind of arrogant selfish people that you really couldn't wait to see her butcher them! They're so mean that they're not even willing to wait and let nature take its course and let granny die naturally, but try to speed up the process! A lot of the acting is very goofy and exaggerated, and it makes for a very tacky and cheesy tone, but because of that and not in spite of it, I just find the movie a lot of fun, it was fast paced. Not every joke lands but everyone seemed to get that they were in a silly horror comedy that I think was meant to be a bit of a sendup of similar B-movies. The scene where devil grandma repeatedly powerslams her grandson while commenting like a wrestling match is again damn funny and not to be missed! It gets really wacky towards the end when she's slaughtered and turned almost the whole family into monster zombie people and they're all laughing like maniacs around the dinner table, of which the visual was giving me some serious Night of the Demons and Beetlejuice vibes! I actually felt a bit bad for the fate that befell granny, becoming a bloodthirsty demented monster from hell and turning against the one relative that she did actually care about in her own cranky and borderline abusive way, she didn't seem all that bad before she changed, just old and understandably bitter as she was surrounded by people who didn't care about her and only wanted her money, except for two. No one gets what they want in this movie - the family of greedy jerks get nothing, granny gets no love and eternal life, and even Kelly doesn't get to be with the mysterious exorcist preacher man that she seemed to fall for at first sight. At least granny came out on top in the loony final scene! Something that really doesn't work for a second is how they tried to dress down Shannon Whirry and make her all plain and homely, she's clearly a vixen even under the librarian exterior! So I think that this odd but very fun horror comedy is more than entertaining and funny enough to stand out among other 90s horror romps like Wishmaster and Warlock The Armageddon, it has no conscience, it's phenomenally cheesy, and I sure laughed my butt off at it, I can't believe I missed out on it as a kid because I know I would have loved it, it's got the making of a cult classic if it isn't one already. A very underrated and fun campy horror comedy indeed, one that's well worth checking out, so give The Granny some sugah! X.

At first when I saw this movie I thought it was gonna be another one of those cheap lame horror films that made no sense. But to my surprise I enjoyed it. Basically it's about an old woman who recieves a visit by a man and he gives her a bottle that is considered to be the "The Fountain of Eternal Youth". She doesn't follow the rules right drinks it, dies, and later comes back from the dead to kill off her greedy family. If you like a movie that has bad launguage, nudity, and blood rent this one. Hey, I gave it a 10 straight up!

Granny (Stella Stevens) has had it with her family. They are greedy, ruthless people who probably want her dead. And how right she is, as they try to attempt to poision her on Thanksgiving day and change her will so they inherit everything. The only good that comes out of the family is her son's illegmate daughter (Shannon Wherry) who has token care of granny most of her life and is supposed to be sole heir to Granny's estate. Well one day, Granny recieves a potion that will give her eternal life, if she and the potion stay out of the sun though. Well guess what, it gets exposed to the sun and granny dies. However she comes back to life as a homicidal, ax swinging demon.

Instead of trying to be your standard, routine slice and dice horror film this feature just goes all out sparing nothing in the process. Stella Stevens is in great form and has some of the funniest one liners in recent memory and Shannon has never been more appealing. The death scenes are possibly some of the most creative and violent in horror film history and the ending is a knockout, especially the dinner table scene with the whole family gathered including dad. Much better then you would expect.

Rated R; Extreme Graphic Violence, Nudity, Profanity, and Sexual Situations.