|
|
Fans of Full Moon entertainment might lap up this insane comedy/horror offering by director Richard Elfman (The Forbidden Zone). After being violently gunned down for sticking their noses in unwanted business, three kids are brought back to life through voodoo by their elderly Haitian friend as floating shrunken heads to seek vengeance against the head mobster who has a real identity crisis (a beautifully smarmy Meg Foster who's loving every minute of it) and her dim-witted thugs who did them wrong, by turning the thugs into model citizen zombies.
'Shrunken Heads' is exceptionally well done for what it is, however there's a childish charm to it all and you take it for face value. Even with such an outrageous and macabre concept, it never finds a surreal air. It's plain, but that's because of the routine plot about vengeful justice set within a crime-riddled urban backdrop (obviously on a studio back-lot). Some laughable moments are achieved. Like the scene when it shows the ritual process of the kids being resurrected as a shrunken head and of course when they hand out their magic punishment. One slices the throat of its victim with it's blade (I don't know where it came from, but hey it's voodoo magic), another chomps and lastly electricity fills the final head. The special effects are cheerfully crude, but workably achieved with puppets and digital animation. Richard Brand's flamboyant score is perfectly etched in and the performances (Aeryk Egan, Becky Herbst, A.J. Damato, and an amusingly campy Julius Harris) are enjoyably brought across. Also in support are Bodhi Elfman and Leigh Allyn Baker. Richard Elfman does a modest injecting some pulpy visuals, despite some bumpy pacing problems and Matthew Bright's script is brightly silly. Wait around to the end as there's still more to show after the credits have some stop rolling.
An odd little film.
score 5/10
lost-in-limbo 27 September 2008
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1952395/ |
|
22-2-2021 12:06:08