Grotesque

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

I first saw this in 1990 on USA Network's "Saturday Nightmares" program block. I recently found my home recorded copy on VHS and decided to revisit it. Honestly... after all these years Grotesque is still a fun movie.

The premise/plot is crazy, the acting is over the top and the make up effects are crude.But hey...that's all part of the charm. As an avid punk rock enthusiast in the 80's this movie was a campy must see for my circle of friends. Granted it's more of a "made for TV" kind of vibe as opposed to say Repo Man, Return of the Living Dead, Dudes, Class of 1984 or heck even Valley Girl but it still fits. Grotesque is one of those flicks you put on when you get home after an evening of partying and hanging out with friends and just want to space out. My friends watched it for Linda Blair but personally, I always watched it for the actress that played "Shelly". Michelle Bensoussan was absolutely beautiful AND bad ass! Oh and it also featured featured Robert "Maniac Cop" Z'Dar!!!

Check it out if you get the chance otherwise...I guess you had to be there.

After watching Linda Blair's HELL NIGHT and discovering a lost '80s gem, I decided to check out another of her post-EXORCIST works, hoping to find something almost as cool. Unfortunately, I chose GROTESQUE, a film about as cool as plunging your hands in boiling water.

A special effects man in Hollywood (who should've been out of a job years ago based on the quality of his work!) takes some time off to spend a quiet weekend with his family in the mountains. But trouble comes knocking in the form of a homicidal Billy Idol and his friends, looking for some Hollywood money and willing to kill for it. But the punks might find more than they're bargaining for...

GROTESQUE has absolutely no idea what kind of film it wants to be. It starts off with a light horror-comedy exposition before abruptly switching gears to a brutal home-invasion thriller. Then it's a cop drama. Then it's a monster movie. Then it's a revenge thriller. Then it decides it wants to be tongue-in-cheek. It's almost as if the director realized his original film was a complete, utter failure and then rewrote the second half, then rewrote it again... and again... and again.

Trouble is, its tone is completely off. Grim home-invasion scenes are soundtracked by bouncy, cheesy synth work. Comedy is abruptly cut off by brutality, and major characters are suddenly disposed of and never brought up again. There's 90 minutes of plot in the first half an hour, then endless sequences of walking through the woods and interrogation scenes in the second. And the film waves goodbye with one of the most head-scratching, incompetent endings I've ever witnessed.

I realize bad movie lovers might get excited reading this review, but it doesn't even deliver the so-bad-it's-good goods. It's mind-numbingly dull, so inept that its ineptness doesn't even provide entertainment. GROTESQUE is one of the worst horror flicks of the decade, and a gung-ho Linda Blair can do nothing to save it.

My review was written in October 1988 after watching the movie on Media Home Entertainment video cassette.

Various low-budget filmmakers team up for the forgettable "Grotesque", a horror exercise aimed primarily at the video trade.

Awkward structure has Linda Blair fronting for the first few reels, driving home for a family reunion, accompanied by pal Donna Wilkes. Her dad Guy Stockwell is a super makeup effects expert, treated to a dose of gore when a gang of punkers (who've had a run-in with Blair on the road) invade the house and start killing everyone.

Blair escapes in the snow and is saved when an overgrown, slow-witted relative is set free from his secret room by the punkers and goes on the rampage. Cops led by Charles Dierkop (of tv's "Police Woman" series) believe the punkers' story blaming the relative for all the trouble.

Though surviving and hospitalized, Blair is written out of the film at this point, with Tab Hunter taking over the lead role as her plastic surgeon uncle. He takes he law into his own hands and predictably avenges his family's massacre by surgically mutilating the punkers' faces in yucky fashion.

Makeup effects here are unimpressive. Credits include many familiar names from indie pics, ranging from composer Bill Loose to "The Love Butcher" co-director Mikel Angel. Luana Patten, absent from the big screen for two decades, has a small role as a gothic old lady in an opening film-within-a-film segment.

Hunter attacks his unsympathetic role with some relish, but Blair, who previously toiled for helmer Joe Tornatore in reshoots on "Nightforce", has little to sink her teeth into.

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.