Wacko

This is absolutely fab. Among the greatest cult movies ever, although it isnt rated like that - yet.

Put your brains on the table and enjoy.

Joe Don Baker - I salute you.

During the early 80s the slasher film had already become a genre ripe for parody. "Student Bodies" and "Pandemonium" are two more of the well-known examples. This one wasn't always terribly funny, in this viewers' humble opinion. It tried so hard to be funny, but didn't always hit the mark. Still, there's an agreeable amount of goofiness and enough good laughs to make it tolerable for an admittedly well-paced 87 minutes.

Joe Don Baker is at his most slovenly as a dedicated police detective who's determined to prove that the dreaded Lawnmower Miller, who last terrorized his city 13 years earlier, is due to return. One of LMs' previous victims was the older sister of virginal Mary ('Newhart's' Julia Duffy), and since she witnessed it, she carries deep emotional scars that will haunt her for the rest of her life.

Among the four credited writers are Dana Olsen ("The 'Burbs") and Jim Kouf ("Stakeout"), and in the directors' chair is prolific B filmmaker Greydon Clark. They take aim at a variety of horror films, from "Psycho" to "The Omen" to "The Island of Dr. Moreau" to the run of slasher pictures of the period. Oddball characters include Mary's brother Damien (Michael Lee Gogin), and the obligatory Red Herring Gardener / Creep (the great character actor Anthony James).

Andrew "Dice" Clay makes his screen debut (without the "Dice" nickname), playing a somewhat Travolta-esque character, and he's reasonably amusing. But he's just one of a number of familiar faces that appear. George Kennedy plays Mary's dad, a voyeur who tries to explain away his creepiness with the repeated refrain of "just mowing the lawn". Stella Stevens, Scott McGinnis, Elizabeth Daily, Sonny Carl Davis, Jeff Altman, Charles Napier, Darby Hinton, and Jacqulin Cole (the directors' wife) are all present and accounted for. But it's Baker who comes off the best. A total slob, his is a character who REALLY can't live without his coffee. He even has a brief scene after the closing credits, if you wait for it.

Overall, a fairly funny comedy, but "Student Bodies" is the best of this genre at the time, at least according to this viewer.

Six out of 10.

Greetings And Salutations, and welcome to my review of Wacko; here's the breakdown of my ratings:

Story: 0.75 Direction: 1.00 Pace: 0.75 Acting: 1.00 Enjoyment: 1.00

TOTAL: 4.50 out of 10.00

This film could have been much better had they revised Dick Harbinger and Mr Doctor Graves - though it could be their comedic personas that are dated and obsolete, though both still have some laughs in them.

The story is that of Mary Graves, who thirteen years earlier witnessed a murder so heinous she's bound to be screwed up by the terrible images she must carry with her for the rest of her life - Her sister and boyfriend receiving a trim from a killer wearing a pumpkin as a mask and pushing a humongous lawnmower. Now, thirteen years later, could the killer and his motor mower be back in town and looking to continue his landscaping business? Well, there has been an escape from the local nuthouse. But don't worry, Dick Harbinger is on the scene. There should be a lot to laugh at, like the parody of Halloween's opening sequence. Where, instead of Mikey Myers scoping out his sister, it's daddy who's peeking in on his daughter. It's expertly constructed and shot, and you explicitly know who's having the pee taken out of them. But when the punchline comes, it's unfunny. And there are too many skits like this one that miss the mark. And the repetition of the "she's bound to be screwed up..." narrative moves from being funny to becoming annoying and predictable - and predictably annoying. But that said, there is still some clever wordplay - I particularly liked the scene when Mr Doctor Graves admits to the missus that he's not a Doctor at all and that Doctor is his first name. There's even some funny slapstick, like Doctor Graves falling from a stepladder after peeping on Mary through her bedroom window while she's sleeping. His jaw hits every run on the way down. One of the funniest characters is Tony Schlongini - the guy even has his own Theme Tune. And thanks to his name, he gets all the licentious laughs. The table tipping sketch is one of my faves.

The direction needed to be better. I heartily believe that Graydon Clark isn't a great comedic director. Many of the comedic fails within the movie come from terrible timing or humdrum cinematography. Though, as I mentioned above, he impeccably replicates the Halloween opening, this is one of a few exceptions - too few. To add power to the punchline, he needed to render more exciting imagery and snappier tempos to the gags.

The cast is excellent, though Joe Don Baker appears to suffer from Graydon Clarks' malady. He's not a comedic actor. You can see he's trying to be funny, but perceiving this, it renders most of his work humourless and a tad lame. On the other hand, the remainder of the cast do splendidly in most of their scenes, but still, there are quite a few that fall flat

Wacko is not a laugh-a-minute or out-loud comedy, but it should raise a chortle and smile in a few places. As such, I'd recommend it for only one viewing; and then only to the die-hard comedic horror fans. Otherwise, I recommend watching Pandemonium or Full Moon High, which are better comedy-horrors from the 80s.

Stop mowing the lawn, get off that damned mower, and visit my Killer Thriller Chillers, Absolute Horror, and Just For Laughs lists to see where I ranked Wacko.

Take Care & Stay Well.

I saw this movie in the mid to late 80's and laughed non-stop. My brothers and I still quote lines from it. It belongs up there with Caddy Shack, Animal House, etc, but never got the recognition it deserves. Andrew Dice Clay was a good addition, but definitely not the star of this movie. I think this might be the only comedy role Joe Don Baker (Detective Harbinger) ever did, but he was great. When he brings the psychologist into the Captain's office I thought I was gonna wet my pants. "If you p!ss him off, RUN!" I tracked down a copy of this movie on VHS and value it more than any of my DVDs. There are a few famous people sprinkled in there, but over all, you don't see much of these people, anymore. Still a great movie for quick laughs.

It's Halloween, it's the night of a school prom, it's a Friday, the Moon is full and 13 years after a brutal murderous spree The Lawnmower Killer is back! Wacko is a horror-comedy with the emphasis very much on the latter, and by comedy I mean the over the top variety, the slapstick and surreal type found in movies such as "Airplane!" For me most of the gags worked and I did laugh out loud a few times though I must have been in the right frame of mind for it. Good production values and a decent cast helped a lot, though hardly a classic this could have been so much worse. Films parodied include Psycho, The Omen, Alien, The Exorcist and The Elephant Man. George Kennedy plays a doctor (his wife says "Mary! Your father is a doctor, he kills people every day") who likes to peep on his teen daughters through their bedroom windows. Not sure how even back then this was meant to be funny, it's creepy and perverted. As usual the school kids look more mid to late 20's than teens, including "Tony", a full blooded alpha male obviously inspired by John Travolta's Danny from Grease but with added crudeness. I always say the horror-comedy is a difficult genre to get right, fortunately Wacko proved to be a worthwhile watch. Furthermore it was made during the Golden Age of the Slasher Movie and that alone is a good enough reason to check it out.