By Geno McGahee
I have never been a fan of Clive Barker, but I’ve tried. I’ve read several of his books and have seen many of his movies, but I could never really see the appeal of his work. You can’t argue with success though and he has made a major impression on the horror world. One of his impressions is a demon by the name of “Rawhead Rex.”
RAWHEAD REX is about a demon that is accidentally released in Ireland and goes on a killing spree. Rawhead Rex looks great. He’s enormous and looks mean and he demands worship. He gets that as a priest in the church gets touched by evil and starts to take him as his god.
Howard (David Dukes) and his wife Elaine (Kelly Piper) are on vacation with their two children and it was just bad timing for them. Of all times, they had to pick the time when Rawhead Rex was released. If it wasn’t for bad luck, they’d have none at all, and they don’t have a lot of common sense either. For instance, their children are very young and the daughter who had to be 6 or 7 years old had to go to the bathroom. At this point, Howard had seen Rawhead Rex and knew it was killing people. Elaine initially tells the girl to just go and when Howard escorts her, she says “she has to grow up sometime.” The girl is 7 years old! Then the girl screams and the parents run over, leaving the 10 year old son alone and he falls prey to Rawhead Rex. Howard now wants revenge and blames the police force, mostly, for the death of his son. In actuality, Howard has nobody to blame but himself.
Rex is getting more followers, including a detective, which leads to a great scene where he sacrifices most of his force to his new god. At one point, the detective is on his knees at the feet of Rawhead Rex while he’s on fire. It’s a very cool visual and this movie has plenty of them. Even though Rex’s face looks a little rubbery, he still looks very badass and his large growls make him very imposing.
As entertaining as Rawhead Rex is, the performance of David Dukes is equally as amusing. He yells, calls people “fuck face” and tells people to “fuck off” with regularity. He kicks ass and takes names. I found his over the top performance very amusing and it carried the movie along during its slower moments.
RAWHEAD REX is a fun monster movie. It is slow at times, but with the great overacting and looming beast, you weren’t waiting for long before you got something else fun. I really like this flick. It’s silly and over the top, but I’m a sucker for silly and over the top. I recommend it!
Rating: 7/10