The Granny

The people who have reviewed THE GRANNY here are obviously NOT horror movie fans, and thus should stick to reviewing films like FREE WILLY, PART 10. Anyway... What an improvement for Luca (GHOULIES, ROCKULA) Bercovici, who wrote, directed and co-stars! THE GRANNY is wonderful, tasteless fun and easily one of the best direct-to-video horror films of the decade.

Stella Stevens is not only the Granny of the title, but the reigning Granny of B-grade direct-to-video flicks. She's terrific chewing the scenery as Anastasia Gargoli, mother to some rather objectionable jerks who (along with their children) are trying to kill her for her inheritance. The only person kind to Granny is her bastard niece Kelly (well played by soft-core queen Shannon Whirry). Before dying, a magical elixir that promises eternal life is injested, and ends up backfiring. Since Kelly is screwed out of an inheritance, Granny returns as a cannibalistic zombie to settle the score.

THE GRANNY is thankfully played out in tongue-in-cheek fashion, so we get a lot of black comedy (such as gags involving incest, decapitation, castration, grave robbing and more). Gore FX are effective and creative, but pretty mediocre. The performances are campy and fun.

On the negative side, the tone of the movie (fluctuating from camp to drama to comedy to horror) may turn some off, and the (open) ending is unnecessary. But in a movie with this much energy and good things going for it, those aspects are quite easy to overlook.

This is the worst movie I have ever seen, but it made me laugh more than most of the hit comedies coming out of hollywood these days. In fact, I've rented it more than once to share with my lucky friends. You just don't know what you are missing if you haven't seen The Granny!

So this is one seriously schlocky horror comedy and I do reckon that if you don't appreciate the comedy or tone right away then you'll probably find it to be a bit of a horrible viewing experience. However if you do enjoy it knowing it's not at all meant to be taken seriously you might have a lot more fun as it a lot of laughs! So I just love Shelly Stevens in it, she was just epic and her titular character gave zero craps and spouted the foulmouthed one-liners like she was Freddy Krueger, and I found the scene especially hilarious when she's still a regular old lady and was choking on the word dime while tearing into her horrible moneygrubbing family, but I thought she was even funnier still when she was resurrected as a demon granny who just loved being pure evil!! She really gave it her all and it's a good example of just one performance carrying and raising an otherwise unremarkable movie above the average and for me, even making it a bit of a hidden gem. I love what a great job they did of making granny's family just the worst kind of arrogant selfish people that you really couldn't wait to see her butcher them! They're so mean that they're not even willing to wait and let nature take its course and let granny die naturally, but try to speed up the process! A lot of the acting is very goofy and exaggerated, and it makes for a very tacky and cheesy tone, but because of that and not in spite of it, I just find the movie a lot of fun, it was fast paced. Not every joke lands but everyone seemed to get that they were in a silly horror comedy that I think was meant to be a bit of a sendup of similar B-movies. The scene where devil grandma repeatedly powerslams her grandson while commenting like a wrestling match is again damn funny and not to be missed! It gets really wacky towards the end when she's slaughtered and turned almost the whole family into monster zombie people and they're all laughing like maniacs around the dinner table, of which the visual was giving me some serious Night of the Demons and Beetlejuice vibes! I actually felt a bit bad for the fate that befell granny, becoming a bloodthirsty demented monster from hell and turning against the one relative that she did actually care about in her own cranky and borderline abusive way, she didn't seem all that bad before she changed, just old and understandably bitter as she was surrounded by people who didn't care about her and only wanted her money, except for two. No one gets what they want in this movie - the family of greedy jerks get nothing, granny gets no love and eternal life, and even Kelly doesn't get to be with the mysterious exorcist preacher man that she seemed to fall for at first sight. At least granny came out on top in the loony final scene! Something that really doesn't work for a second is how they tried to dress down Shannon Whirry and make her all plain and homely, she's clearly a vixen even under the librarian exterior! So I think that this odd but very fun horror comedy is more than entertaining and funny enough to stand out among other 90s horror romps like Wishmaster and Warlock The Armageddon, it has no conscience, it's phenomenally cheesy, and I sure laughed my butt off at it, I can't believe I missed out on it as a kid because I know I would have loved it, it's got the making of a cult classic if it isn't one already. A very underrated and fun campy horror comedy indeed, one that's well worth checking out, so give The Granny some sugah! X.

Surprisingly entertaining tongue-in-cheek little horror flick of the mid-90's that is undeservedly obscure and unloved. The film has a relatively original premise – with a few identifiable moments of comedy – about a wealthy grandmother who's offered the chance to gain immortality by a mysterious hermit who shows up at her ; under the condition that she makes peace with her family on Thanksgiving Day. That's easier said than done, however, as her family is a collection of greedy vultures and sleaze scumbags that cannot wait for granny to die so that they can finally sell the parental house and inherit the family fortune. Only the geeky but obviously stunningly beautiful granddaughter Kelly genuinely cares for Granny with all her heart. Granny ignores the condition, drinks the potion and dies at the spot. The family is very happy, of course, especially since they clumsily altered the testament themselves, but granny soon after returns as a vengeful and bloodthirsty demon. The grotesque death sequences benefit from goody gruesome make-up effects (one woman is eaten by her fur coat, another one has his penis bitten off, etc…) and there are quite a lot of tasteless and blackly comical gags on taboo topics like incest. The final act of the film becomes quite ridiculous; especially when all the massacred family members return as demons as well to complete their Thanksgiving diner. The climax battle also definitely outstays its welcome, but hey, certain little flaws are easy to forgive. Last but not least, there's some fantastically gratuitous and more than welcome nudity, provided by the extremely hot female starlets Shannon Whirry (a former soft core actress) and the voluptuous Heather Parkhurst (a former bikini advertisement model).

This is one of those cheap horror flicks that was made strictly for video and you just can't take a film like this seriously so either skip it altogether or just have fun watching it. Story has a granny (Stella Stevens) who's family comes for a visit but they really try to knock her off for her inheritance. A strange man named Namon Ami (Luca Bercovici) comes by and gives her a potion that will give her eternal life but she can't allow it to be subjected to sunlight or else! Well, or else happens and when granny finally drinks it she later turns into a demon and she starts killing everyone in her family. The film is bloody and gory but its not the type of gore thats realistic so it remains on a lightweight level which helps the viewer. Of course in this type of exploitation there is nudity and Shannon Whirry and Heather Elizabeth Parkhurst are eye popping beautiful! No reason to really dislike this film because since it doesn't take itself seriously and the humor is tongue in cheek why would a viewer pick this apart? If you like these low budget horror films this one has some genuinely funny moments so just sit back and have fun!