Grotesque

Matt and I have seen alot of really crappy movies together. We always have a good time. Or at least we DID until our (ex)friend Ron loaned us this one. We've used the database to check out the background on lots of these movies. This one made us register so we could warn others!

There were endless, pointless scenes of crazed people running through murky woods. This is not as bad as it may seem - at least this was a break from some of the worst dialogue ever scribbled on scraps of paper in the bathroom. To be fair, there were two good, albeit brief, moments in this flick. One - A terrorized victim glares at the villains and accuses them of being scum, to which the ringleader replies leeringly "It's a scummy world!" Two - The deformed, heartbroken nephew of two of the victims picks up one of the female attackers and snaps her spine against a pine tree. These moments are not worth wasting the longest 80 minutes of your life. Just say "NO!".

A weird film that is disjointed to an extreme but could have been so much better with a little thought. It would probably have worked better as a half hour Tale From The Darkside.

Unusually Linda remains fully clothed but does spend most of the movie in her pyjamas!

Don't bother unless you are a Blair completist.

I did like what one reviewer said about this film's plot drunkenly staggering all over the place. It does. I first saw this movie, like others I review on IMDb, when I was a kid, on the USA network. I saw it from the beginning to the part when the dad gets clubbed by the hoodlums, and then my mom turned it off, saying, "you don't need to see that". Then I think we watched COPS or something. I remember it was on USA's Saturday Nightmares. Well, I just moved to a new town, and the local video store had a worn out old copy of this movie so I rented it. I saw a few parts I had remembered and some I didn't, but the bottom line is it's a good movie. There is some truly bad acting, and some violence that is just plain mean. There are also some really stupid plot holes, but if you like '80's horror, then this is not too bad. The plot does jump around a bit; the whole thing flashes around like it's the plot to some big network action pilot. Also containing stupid dialog and an out-of-place ending(but some truly exploitative violence), this is a good film for any '80's horror buff. Oh, and the Frankenstein/Wolfman ending is only on the TV version. Whoever has a tape of that TV version should treasure it I guess. Three stars.

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.

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.