I like movie spoofs, but I had been avoiding this one under the impression that it was really bad. I had a lousy night and was looking for a stupid comedy movie to watch, so I finally gave this one a try.
I needn't have been avoiding it for so long. I actually did find it pretty funny. The really good spoof movies I think probably write a lot of gags, and then only put the best of them into the movie. The poorer ones put them all in. The worst put them all in, but the writers were so bad, none of the gags are funny. I'd put this in the middle category.
Despite the title, the movie is more of a spoof of Psycho, with some elements from Silence of the Lambs thrown in, and then some brief spoofy references to other movies.
There's a lot here that doesn't work. I didn't think any of the funny names were funny, but then funny names so rarely are. There are also some gags borrowed from other spoofs, but at least some of them still work. For example, in a shower scene taken from Psycho, the curtain is pulled back to reveal a small orchestra of string musicians. That's been in at least a couple of Mel Brooks' movies (and he has a cameo in this one). That gag is used twice in this film, as when a woman who has just stolen money from her boss is driving in her car and we hear dialog we've already heard running through her head (as in Psycho also). It turns out there's a car next to her, and the people are shouting the dialog through megaphones at her. Stupid, but amusing.
There's a ridiculous scene where the FBI hero shows up at an asylum, and when asked for his badge he produces a waffle. Surrealism is alive! The man asking for the badge was seemingly behind a door, with a little slot to look out of. As he opens this door, and the camera pulls back, we see the door guard is actually just holding a board in front of his face!
Another Psycho gag is when Martin Balsam falls backwards down a flight of stairs. As much as I like Psycho, that scene looked fairly goofy. Here, he falls down and since the stairs are actually being back-projected (or bluescreened), they turn around 360 degrees, and he also inexplicably falls through the sky as well. I found that amusing. When he finally hits the landing, he's stabbed by a knife, then a barbecue fork, and a number of other things including a dildo. That was just stupid.
So anyway, I feel this movie, while not great, is underrated. If you like movie spoofs, and you're familiar with Hitchcock's Psycho and Silence of the Lambs, I think it's likely you'll find some humor in it as I did.
