CHILLERAMA

Review by E.C.McMullen Jr.

CHILLERAMA - 2011 Dino De La Rocha Productions, ArieScope Pictures, Image Entertainment Rating: USA: R

From the very beginning, CHILLERAMA wants you to think: madcap gross-out comedy.

A man enters a cemetery at night to visit his deceased wife.

Then he digs her up.

Then he attempts to get a blow-job from her corpse that he never got in life.

Naturally, Merry mishaps occur.

This sets into motion the zombie apocalypse wrap around to the anthology movie, CHILLERAMA. Bleeding glowing blue blood from his wrecked groin, he goes to his job across the street: the final night of the Kaufman drive in. Run by Cecil Kaufman (in an obvious nod to fan favored movie mogul, Lloyd Kaufman), the movie drive-in has been losing money over the years and now its time to close it. So all of the folks who stayed away have come back for one last Hurrah, and the movie menu is all Horror!

Cecil (Richard Riehle: over 250 movies to his credit including, FRIED GREEN TOMATOES, MIGHTY JOE YOUNG, WASTING AWAY, RED [2008], NECESSARY EVIL, Rob Zombie's HALLOWEEN II), is a gun-toting theater owner who dearly loves trashy Horror cinema and has no tolerance for anyone who would disrupt the very last night of fun he'll be able to bring to his customers. After all, the upcoming movies are lost, undiscovered gems never-before-seen!

The first movie is WADZILLA. Writer and Director Adam Rifkin (PSYCHO COP RETURNS) goes full bore Troma even while he slingshots his short back to the early 1960s Creature Features. Miles Munson (Adam again) is a man with a low sperm count. Kindly Dr. Weems (Ray Wise: CAT PEOPLE, ROBOCOP, JEEPERS CREEPERS II) can't help him increase his count, but he might be able to help him strengthen what few sperm Miles has thanks to an experimental drug (and accidental radiation). The results are as ridiculously over-the-top as any 60s creature feature would follow, and as gross-out sexual as you may or may not be able to imagine.

The next flick of the night is I WAS A TEENAGE WEREBEAR. Writer and director Tim Sullivan (2001 MANIACS) gives Scream Queen winner, Gabby West, a far better part than what she got screwed out of in SAW 3D. WEREBEAR tells the tale of a young male teenager, Ricky (gay porn actor, Sean Paul Lockhart) who hasn't come to terms with the fact that he is, in reality, a changeling who will turn into a middle-aged, pudgy Werebear (Chris Staviski: CARNIES, THE SUMMER OF MASSACRE) whenever his body succumbs to its homosexual urges. As knock-about as it is, I WAS A TEENAGE WEREBEAR is amazingly true to the strengths and weaknesses of the homosexual community (at least as much as someone like me, who is outside looking in, can glean). While Tim's short espouses many of the LGBT community's points, it keeps it within a humor that avoids what could have become a preachfest.

The third flick - and for me the funniest - is from Writer and Director Adam Green (HATCHET, FROZEN). THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANKENSTEIN is as un-PC as possible. Simply speaking, Adolf Hitler (Joel David Moore: HATCHET, AVATAR) and his girlfriend Eva Braun (Kristina Klebe: Rob Zombie's HALLOWEEN) personally discovers the hideout of Anne Frank and family (who changed their name from Frankenstein to Frank many years before). He has them all slaughtered and finds the book from Dr. Frankenstein to make his own creature. Before you can say "Ach, du Scheiße!", Hitler is showing off his new varmint, a Rabbinical Critter (Kane Hodder: HOUSE II: THE SECOND STORY, 2001 MANIACS, HATCHET, ROOM 6, HACK!, FROZEN), to his not nearly impressed enough Eva (Kristina Klebe: Rob Zombie's HALLOWEEN) and henchmen.

The final movie in the antho, from Writer and Director Joe Lynch (WRONG TURN 2: DEAD END), is nearly one long scatological joke. Though the shortest of the mini-movies, it's also the fastest, often literally throwing every shit joke against the wall to see what sticks. The jokes would have become quickly tedious (notice how dull 2 Girls and a Cup got after the third or fourth viewing? I only watch it every few months these days, and I probably won't watch it at all by 2012) if it wasn't for the secret ingredient of Joe himself.

What makes it work is Joe as his alter ego, esteemed cinema auteur, Fernando Phagabeefy. Fernando, with his impeccably groomed haircut and pencil thin mustache, dresses himself in tortoise shell glasses, smoking jacket and ascot replete with pipe, all while affecting an air of aristocratic intelligentsia. With the gravitas of an esteemed BBC television host, Phagabeefy introduces the upcoming shitstorm film with critical analysis and dire warnings. The various quick gross-out clips of floating, flying, excreting turds are paced with elegant comedic timing. Whether you are grossed out or laughing, Joe has succeeded in either case.

The zombie drive-in wrap-around is less than the sum of its parts, but the four directors wanted to firmly plant themselves in Troma-style cult movie status and midnight cinema. Whether or not they succeeded will only be determined by time, but CHILLERAMA is great whacked-out fun that is better than most of the movies it seeks to emulate!

Four Negative shriek Girls for being So Bad It's Great!

This review copyright 2011 E.C.McMullen Jr.



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