Grotesque (1988) - Joe Tornatore

This movie is an overloaded, low-budget, slasher. Full of cartoonish characters that fall flat and boring. I had hoped for a nice low budget feature, but only received a pointless and out-of-touch, made for TV quality, picture. Linda Blair is more adjacent to Reba McEntire, in appearance, in this film than the Scream Queen is herself. Does that make sense?

The film surrounds the Krueger family. The father Orville Krueger is a Special Effects Artist and wants to "...take a break from Hollywood..." and go out to the family home in deep in the woods. Presumably near Big Bear, CA, since that's where it was filmed. The film focuses on Lisa Krueger and her friend who are driving to the family home. They come upon the most pathetically exaggerated caricatures of evil gutter Punks. The girls refuse the Punks help with car-trouble and this presumably starts off a chain of events that ends up as nothing but pointless drivel. Something about a monster-man thing, the snow, some lame deaths, and a horrible plot.

The film takes so many different paths, that it becomes hard to determine who you are supposed to get behind. The acting is a special kind of bad. The worst part is that someone had actually put some money into this horrible plot. It felt as though it were being written as it was moving on. Characters came and went so quickly. It was watered down. It was hard to swallow. It was not good. I usually don't bash on movies like this but this one was bad.

It had left me thinking that an hour and a half were too much. I cant recommend this movie to anyone. I will have to say, pass on this movie unless you want to be disappointed. The ending is the most horrific part of the movie. It's just really awful. Poor show.

Director: Joe Tornatore
Country: USA
Style: Horrific Slasher Comedy

Did ya know...

Linda Blair once stated in an interview with Fangoria magazine that the original title of the film wasn't as exploitive, and as associate producer, she could have sued to fight the change, but it would have ended up costing her more money than she got out of the whole project.
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Comments

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