Rating: C+
Dir: Ken Arnold, Dan De Luca, Jamie Nash, Matt Servitto
Star: Matt Servitto, Henry Zebrowski, Rain Pryor, Jimmy Bellinger
Pulling off one horror-comedy is always going to be tough, because of the problems inherent in striking a balance between the two, often incompatible genres. It doesn’t help that everyone has a different opinion on where the balance should lie, and I find most entries tilt significantly one way, giving the other relatively short shrift. Trying to do so within the anthology format, with four different stories, from four different directors, plus a wrap-around segment? It feels like this is almost doomed to fail. So it’s a bit of a surprise to report that, in the main, this turns out to be both tolerably amusing, and acceptably horrific.
The wrap-around sets the tone nicely. Substitute teacher Mrs. Evanora (Kathy Searle) carries out story time for the little darlings in her charge: only the stories she tells are far from age appropriate. We start with Clown Town, which reverses the usual trope of a killer clown stalking victims, being set in a town where everybody except the killer wears clown make-up and costumes. That’s really about the only joke here, but it’s squeezed for every drop of humour, from squeaky shoes to using a tomato as a nose. Next is Fun with Furklee, in which a retired kid’s puppet comes back to life in psychotic fashion. Or is it his creator, Larry (Bellinger), who is really the insane one?
Full disclosure: both Chris and I dozed off during the third installment, Last Maid Standing. I don’t think that was a coincidence, as it fells like the weakest. The others had good ideas, but this one, about bridesmaids literally fighting to become the maid of honour, never seemed to get going, and sputtered its way to the end. Finally, in Good Head we get the most recognizable name, director/star Servitto having had significant roles in both Banshee and The Sopranos. Here, he plays self-obsessed superhero actor, Cooper Bradley (!), who gets more than he expected after going to visit a special effects guru to get a head cast made. Let’s just say: if you ever wanted to see someone being attacked by Meryl Streep’s body parts (top), this film has you covered.
Despite the multiple directors, there is a consistency of tone across the entirety of proceeding here, that helps everything gel. However, just about all the stories feel like something was left on the table in the execution, to varying degrees. Furklee probably does the best job of getting mileage from its idea, but when you have the infinite universe of Hollywood history to play with, as in Good Head, arm-wrestling an arm cast of Sly Stallone feels a bit like a failure of imagination. But the segments here are mostly interesting and at least amusing in general concept, and with the exception of Maid, none of them outstayed their welcome, often a concern in anthologies. If a Volume 2 ever appears, we’ll likely check it out.