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“What I want to know is what the sweet scent of
Satan's scrote is going on here.” Anthology horror – as well as horror
heyday nostalgia – has been in rude health in recent years. Case in point: Chillerama
– a goofy horror comedy that takes a love of Drive-In movie-going memories and
splatters it from head to toe with blood, guts, puzzling blue goo, and an awful
lot of the, not only brown, but white stuff for good measure! Featuring
Werebears, a nymphomaniac Eva Braun, an enormous killer spermatozoa, and an
outbreak of horny zombies – which accounts for just the tip of the bizarre idea
iceberg – Chillerama is, to put it mildly, just a little bit strange...
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screenshots…
“Well I'm thinking it's time for a little bit of dead
head.” Considering that the film opens – in the style of a 1950s horror
cheapie with Ed Wood production value (wobbly fake grass, ahoy) – with
an aggrieved widower digging up his despised, and decidedly deceased, wife in
order to put his bits 'n pieces somewhere they shouldn't – only to have his
yambag munched off – it's fair to say that the tone has been firmly set at
scatological.
“I don't know, Orson, looks like last licks for us old
bones.” It's the final night of cinematic mayhem at Cecil B. Kaufman's
drive-in movie theatre – brought down by High Definition TV and Video On Demand
– and the old lover of the silver screen (Richard Riehle, Office Space)
has dug up some curious celluloid creations hitherto unseen to delight his
popcorn munching audience.
“The military is doing its best to determine what it
would take to rub one out of this size.” First up is Adam (Detroit
Rock City) Rifkin's Wadzilla, a spin on all those 'science gone
wrong in a big, bad way' schlockers of the mid-20th Century, that
concerns Miles (Rifkin) – a lonely office drone with a woeful sperm
count. However, Doctor Weems (an impressively game Ray Wise, Robocop)
has an experimental medicine for the nuclear age that might just do the trick –
but who are we kidding, things don't quite go according to plan!
“There's not an ovum on earth big enough for that
thing!” Unfortunately for Miles his new pills come with an inconvenient
side effect: whenever he gets turned on he suffers a crippling pain in his fun
zone – something which turns his blind date with Louise (Sarah Mutch)
into a desperate, militarised race to destroy his city-destroying willy worm
before it devours the planet! Quite possibly peaking early in the outlandish
stakes, Chillerama's first tale boasts more infantile innuendos than you
can shake a strip-teasing Statue of Liberty at (seriously). Plus, in a
treat for genre fans, stop motion effects from the Chiodo Brothers breathe
Harryhausen-esque life into the slimy slithering beast. Frenetic in its style –
film grain, dutch angles, dodgy rear projection, chain smoking – Wadzilla
proves to be a high point that the second story just can't top.
“If nothing else I've gotta purge this urge!”
Tim (2001 Maniacs) Sullivan's I Was A Teenage Werebear
sounds good on paper – a spoof mix of the 'beach movie' craze with Rebel
Without A Cause by way of The Wolf Man – but the results, laden with
clunky comedy song interludes, turns out to be a bit of a wet blanket. It's
1962 in California and Ricky (Sean Paul Lockhart) is about to get lucky
with his gal Peggy Lou (Gabrielle West) just before a day of 'school at
the beach' is about to kick off, but when they're interrupted Ricky doesn't
seem quite as irked as Peggy Lou, much to her frustration.
“It was your bite; my ass!” Turns out Ricky is
struggling with his sexual identity, something which James Deen-alike Talon (Anton
Troy) and his gang take a keen interest in. Ricky's confusion only gets
more out of control when he's bitten and becomes one of Talon's gang of
'Werebears' (gay werewolves, essentially). The idea is intriguing, but
the execution falters – especially sandwiched between the two most convincing (and
visually arresting) segments – further hindered by a lack of focus and a
slow pace, which contributes towards Chillerama's somewhat overlong
feel. The tone is suitably goofy, but a few clumsily implemented elements –
particularly the love 'em or hate 'em musical moments – unfortunately makes
Werebear the stumbling block of the anthology.
“Silence! Mercy is not in my vocabulary.” The
trickiest prospect out of the four tales comes next – The Diary of Anne
Frankenstein – which, as Adam (Hatchet) Green admitted, could
easily have become a crass and hugely offensive bum note. Fortunately, layered
in absolute silliness as it is, this story of Hitler crafting a monster (played
by horror icon Kane Hodder) in order to take over the world rivals Wadzilla
for crazed invention and belly laughs.
“How will I achieve victory with a monster that is
cute?!” Brilliantly realised – with stagey sets, limited coverage,
grainy black and white, and 'mistakes' getting left in – Green goes for broke
and the gamble pays off. Joel David Moore (Avatar) hams up Hitler
as a petulant, whining, cuckold to Kristina (Halloween) Klebe's
infantilising nymphomaniac Eva Braun. The piece is entirely in German – except
for Moore's Hitler, who uses a combination of gibberish and humiliating statements
in actual German – helping The Diary of Anne Frankenstein to play 'Team
Nazi' for absolute fools.
“In other words, what you're about to see will make
you shit – a lot – buckets of excrement!” A slight detour in the form
of 'Deathication', as presented by a deluded 'Fernando Phagabeefy', takes the
Joe (Everly) Lynch's wraparound story of Zom-B-Movie to
the logical conclusion of the film's generally scatological nature just when
you thought this anthology couldn't get any weirder. The final night at
Kaufman's drive-in is drawing to a close, and among the audience are nerdy boy
Toby (Corey Jones) and nerdy girl Mayna (Kaili Thorne), but a
batch of blue-goo infected popcorn (don't ask) has unleashed an army of
ravenously rapacious zombies! Can nerdy boy Toby get the girl and save the day
in this quote-riffing, cine-literate tale of young love which blossoms into a
gloopy, glowing, undead orgy of all-consuming proportions?!
“Rosebud motherfucker!” Crammed full with
references and numerous them-from-that-thing cameos (including Lin
Shaye, Eric Roberts, and Ron Jeremy), Chillerama – much like any
anthology – isn't all gold and, at times, stumbles and slows. However, with
this many insane ideas and this much love for B-Movie zaniness, the good
considerably outweighs the bad.
“Hooray for boobs.” Image Entertainment's 2011
Region 1 DVD comes with an audio commentary, a selection of
deleted/alternate/test scenes, interviews, and a couple of informative making
of featurettes. If you're a fan of the cheap and cheerful exploitation fare of
yesteryear then you won't go far wrong with this outrageously daft slab of
splatter, sleaze, and silliness.
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