By Melissa Antoinette Garza
My husband wants me to give this flick a 10 out of 10. He’s overreaching quite a bit, but it was certainly a film worth watching.
GROTESQUE is a fun confused mess with an odd premise and an even odder implementation. The performances seem as though they should come out of a 1980s satanic-panic afterschool special.
The movie begins with Lisa (Linda Blair) going to her family’s cabin with friend Kathy (Donna Wilkes). Lisa’s mother and father are happy to have their child home, but they’re not the only one who lives there. A deformed man that Lisa considers her brother is kept in a back room.
A bunch of punk rocker gangbangers show up and kill the family angering the mentally-challenged mutant. He goes on a full-fledge massacre against them.
The police arrive on the scene along with Lisa’s uncle Rod (Tab Hunter). The cops take in the surviving criminals who deny doing anything wrong. An awful yet entertaining, ten-minute session of good cop/bad cop is shown. When the police’s hands are tied, the tone of the film shifts again.
For the last act, it’s a DEATH WISH style vengeance film. Rod angry at the loss of his family go after the punk rockers thus leading to one of the most ridiculous endings of all time. That is until the second conclusion occurs which is even more ridiculous.
GROTESQUE has no idea what it wants to be. The head punk rocker talks like a pro-wrestler and one of the lackey’s laughs like a hyena after every single sentence. Another gang-banger just wants to screw any guy who is in the room with her. They’re not even caricatures, but rather cartoons.
Elements of comedy, action and horror are meshed together but never come together in any sensible way. It doesn’t make any sense. Still, somehow it works.
It’s stupid and ridiculous. I don’t think 5 minutes went by when I would say sarcastically to my brother, “Good choice, Geno,” yet I didn’t want to turn it off. None of us did. Steve was in his glory. The less a film makes sense, the more Steve seems to love it.
All of that said, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed seeing the guy who sang Reproduction in GREASE 2, ham it up as an emotionally destroyed family man pushed too far. I loved to see the guy who played MANIAC COP (Robert Z’Dar) take orders from a guy 1/3 his size. I loved the HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH (1982) masks appearing in the movie along with a bunch of other cool special effects (none of which were used on the mutant). I loved Linda Blair in her cute girl next door role and the head-gangster given dialogue that was supposed to be deep, but came out absurdly. I even loved how the movie skipped from subject to subject and never found its footing.
This movie is free on YOUTUBE, but, believe it or not, I’d pay to see it. It’s just so bizarre. You can’t help but find out where the movie is going and when you find out it’s nowhere, you’re not disappointed.
Scared Stiff Rating: 6.5/10
