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22 December 2023
Hey there, freaks! As I am sure you are all painfully aware, most movies these days are just collections of cliches. We even have a column that exposes many of them here at the paper called Everything I Ever Needed To Know I Learned From The Movies. (Yeah, I wanted to come up with a longer title, but my keyboard broke.)
Well, in this month's Freak Film, Shrunken Heads, you can see the cliches coming. Three comic book-loving kids decide to clean up their crime-infested Fifties-style neighborhood, and the cliches are stacked like firewood.
For example, who do you think the hot girl falls for when she starts to realize her gang leader boyfriend is a big old jerk? If you said Tommy, the kid who always gets beat up by said gang leader, give yourself two points. Or what happens to Tommy and his two friends after they get gunned down by the gang for interfering? If you said the local newsstand owner saws off their heads, shrinks them down, and gives them the ability to fly and shoot lightning bolts- give yourself 2,500 points.
Yeah, you could say Shrunken Heads is just a little bit different. It starts out feeling so cliched, so B-movie that you might consider bailing on it before it even gets good-- but don't.
This gem was directed by Richard Elfman (Forbidden Zone) with a main title composed by his brother, Danny Elfman, and released by Full Moon Entertainment. Full Moon is like a kinder, gentler Troma. They manage to capture a child-like innocence in their flicks, which I really enjoy.
While the cheese factor is very high in this film, it's a good kind of cheese, like John Waters' Cry-Baby or The Sandlot. This film is not bad because the filmmaker doesn't care; it's bad because he does.
The most important thing you have to remember about this movie is that it has flying shrunken heads that use switchblades and shoot lightning. What the hell are you waiting for?
PURCHASE THIS OR SIMILAR ITEMS
Well, in this month's Freak Film, Shrunken Heads, you can see the cliches coming. Three comic book-loving kids decide to clean up their crime-infested Fifties-style neighborhood, and the cliches are stacked like firewood.
For example, who do you think the hot girl falls for when she starts to realize her gang leader boyfriend is a big old jerk? If you said Tommy, the kid who always gets beat up by said gang leader, give yourself two points. Or what happens to Tommy and his two friends after they get gunned down by the gang for interfering? If you said the local newsstand owner saws off their heads, shrinks them down, and gives them the ability to fly and shoot lightning bolts- give yourself 2,500 points.
Yeah, you could say Shrunken Heads is just a little bit different. It starts out feeling so cliched, so B-movie that you might consider bailing on it before it even gets good-- but don't.
This gem was directed by Richard Elfman (Forbidden Zone) with a main title composed by his brother, Danny Elfman, and released by Full Moon Entertainment. Full Moon is like a kinder, gentler Troma. They manage to capture a child-like innocence in their flicks, which I really enjoy.
While the cheese factor is very high in this film, it's a good kind of cheese, like John Waters' Cry-Baby or The Sandlot. This film is not bad because the filmmaker doesn't care; it's bad because he does.
The most important thing you have to remember about this movie is that it has flying shrunken heads that use switchblades and shoot lightning. What the hell are you waiting for?
PURCHASE THIS OR SIMILAR ITEMS
artid
1528
Old Image
5_12_ff.jpg
issue
vol 5 - issue 12 (aug 2003)
section
entertainmental