Rabid Grannies

There is great fun to be had here. Please, do not watch this film and expect ANYTHING redeeming because you will not find one single thing. This is Troma, expect bad acting, plenty of gore, random sex and nudity and an insanely ridiculous and nonsensical plot.

Two Aunts (yeah, I know it is called Rabid Grannies.....) are holding are birthday party and they invite the family to their huge mansion. All the family arrive (a lesbian couple, a gun maniac, a horny cousin, a family and another couple) for dinner to be held at night. When dinner is finished and present time comes the two aunts open a package that was delivered by an old lady earlier that night. It is from the black sheep of the family, a satanist. The present turns the two aunts into big, ugly demon creatures who proceed to eat everyone they see (including a poor little girl).

After half an hour of stupid dialogue, awful dubbing (and acting for that matter) and random stupidity the gore kicks in. There isn't a whole lot of it but there's a good amount and it's usually extremely funny and gruesome. Most of the movie is pure comedy though, with such scenes as one of the grannies wearing a suit of armour (dunno why), a fat man getting his arse eaten and a little boy saying, "That's smashing!" while watching a guest being eaten.

3½/5

This isn't a great movie. I certainly wouldn't recommend it to anyone.There are some funny moments, and I wouldn't say I wasted my time (I laughed a few times and I got to write this review, so that's always fun), but overall there are infinitely better gore-comedies out there. If you want to see something like this, only done with a little more professionalism (and a lot more gore), try "Dead Alive" or "Bad Taste". Those movies are funnier, plus, if you watch "Bad Taste", you'll get to see director Peter Jackson as a zombie.

Just because this film bears a typically Troma-like title, and features the Troma logo on the packaging, don't make the mistake of thinking it is a Troma production—because it isn't.

It is, in fact, a low-budget Belgian film that was simply picked up for distribution by the studio, and, as far as I am concerned, it is much more enjoyable than the majority of Lloyd Kaufman's own B-movie output.

In this delightfully silly and very gory romp, a group of greedy relatives gather together at the mansion of their two elderly aunts, in order to attend their birthday celebrations (and hopefully worm their way into their aunts' wills). However, when the old women open a surprise birthday present (sent by the black sheep of the family—a practitioner of the black arts), they become possessed, transform into vicious, drooling, bloodthirsty monsters, and proceed to tear their party guests limb from limb.

If you're a fan of visceral OTT slapstick horror—particularly Sam Raimi's Evil Dead trilogy (which this film is obviously heavily influenced by) or the early work of Peter Jackson (whose similarly daft Bad Taste came out the same year)—then Rabid Grannies should be right up your alley. Director Emmanuel Kervyn spends the first thirty minutes introducing us to his raft of absurdly unlikeable characters (none of whom really deserve to survive 'til the end credits), and the next sixty dismembering them in as many inventive and silly ways as possible. It might not be Oscar winning material, but it's a whole heap of fun!

Considering the limited budget, the juicy effects on display are pretty damn good, and the film sure doesn't hold back with the nastiness: one man has his limbs hacked off, before being impaled (between the legs) on a pike; a fat guy gets stuck trying to escape, and has his ass eaten; and even a little girl gets reduced to spare parts by the demonic old dears!

7.5 out of 10, rounded up to 8 for IMDb.

Right, given the age of the movie, the title of the movie and the plot synopsis of the movie, you just know that you are in for one cheesy movie. And the movie is exactly just that, campy and cheesy.

Given the fact that the movie is from the late 1980's, then it wasn't particularly impressive, not even for that time of age. I remember there was far better horror movies around back then. And "Rabid Grannies" is listed as a comedy horror movie, but there is surprisingly little comedy in it, unless you count the horrible dubbing and questionable acting as comedy, or if the lack of coherent plot qualifies as comedy, I will just leave that up to the individual viewers to decide for themselves.

The story in "Rabid Grannies" is about a birthday party held at an old castle for aunts, when a mysterious stranger appears at the front gate with a strange present. The present contains a diabolical gift that turns the two elderly women into demonic creatures that are hungry for the flesh of their relatives, seeking to torment and kill them in the most gruesome of manners. Time is ticking for the family as the demonic duo wrecks havoc and destruction upon them, one at a time. Can they survive the ordeal and make it through the night alive?

The story in itself wasn't all that bad, but unfortunately it was executed by questionable actors and it wasn't particularly helped along by the horrible dubbing of English speaking voice actors - who all sounded constipated and were yelling most of the time instead of speaking.

There is a little bit of gore in the movie, that actually works out well enough, but it is hardly enough to make the movie interesting to watch. And the demonic creatures sort of look like parodies of wicked, evil creatures, so it is a little bit hard to take it all seriously.

Personally, I found "Rabid Grannies" to be somewhat of a struggle to actually get through, because my attention kept drifting away from the movie, as there was just too many scenes that were questionable, laughable or downright irrelevant for the actual movie.

If you enjoy movies from the late 1980's and haven't already seen it, and if you have absolutely nothing else to do, then perhaps watching this movie might be right for you. But otherwise, there is nothing worthwhile appealing to this movie. I have seen it now, and can honestly say that I will never see it again, nor do I consider my cinematic history of movie watching enriched in any way by having seen this particular movie.

The original title of the movie is "les mémés cannibales", which translates as "the cannibal grannies", so why they opted to title this movie "rabid grannies" is beyond my comprehension.

I am giving this movie a 3/10 rating because of the small amount of gore and mayhem that was in it and because of the original idea, which was the only two things that really appealed to me. The rest of the movie is not worth mentioning.

Rabid Grannies is a fantastic comedy/horror film from Belgium, which has been (poorly) dubbed into English and distributed by Troma. Not only does this film possess one of the best titles in cinematic history, it also boasts innovative direction, great gore effects and some wonderfully tasteless humour.

The film is based on a simple, yet very effective premise. Two old ladies invite various family members to their large estate in order to celebrate their birthday. As the family gathers for dinner, a package arrives from a disowned cousin, which the two old grannies quickly unwrap. Inside the package is a box containing an evil spirit, which takes possession of the women and turns them into blood hungry demons. From this point on, the grannies gleefully decapitate, dismember and torture their guests with a high degree of wit and originality.

Despite the obvious budgetary constraints, the gore is well done and original. Highlights include one of the grannies literally biting her rotund nephew's butt off and the scene in which the grannies lure their granddaughter to her death. All of the violence has a strong undercurrent of black humour, which thankfully is never constrained by the bounds of good taste. Examples include the fate of the cowardly priest and the throwing around of severed body parts. I highly recommend the unrated European version of the film as the Troma edition, at least in Australia, is missing a significant amount of carnage.

Rabid Grannies (literally translated "the cannibalistic grandmas") is an unusual and highly amusing horror film, which is destined to become a cult favourite. I think it is time for Emmanuel Kervyn to hurry up and make another picture. Rabid Grannies 2 would be a nice place to start.