Terror Toons

The Details:

Directed by: Joe Castro

MPAA: Rated R for violence/gore and some nudity.

Runtime: 75 min

Country: USA

Language: English

Color: Color

Certification: UK:18 / USA:R

The Review:

Three letters can explain my thoughts on this movie: WTF?!?

No seriously. Let's examine this little flick from director Joe Castro. Things kick off with a rather hilarious introduction by some leather-and-stud-clad punk rocker. I have to admit, this terrible little intro had me pumped up for what was to come. As soon as the actual movie began my jaw was on the floor. The so called "special-effects" in the opening scene contain some of the worst blue-screen and After-Effects filters I've ever seen! Needless to say, I was excited.

The movie gets right to the gore, with Dr. Carnage mutiliating what looks to be either Tweedledee or Tweedledum. Not sure which. We are then presented with the most cliche of horror scenarios: Two sisters are left home alone while their parents
leave town.
I have to give the guys that made this movie mad props, the mom is actually played by a friggin' cross-dresser! The busty sisters and their friend invite some sweaty guys from the gym over to spend the night and the movie kicks into gear...sort of.

Dr. Carnage and his giant monkey minion Max Assassin infiltrate the house by way of a DVD copy of the latest entertainment sensation "Terror Toons" which is produced by none-other than The Devil himself. What quickly follows is the only genuinely creepy and successful effect in the entire movie. SPOILER WARNING: The two cartoon baddies convert the younger sister into a puppet, and whenever she speaks to anyone her mouth moves erratically. Yep, that's the only effect that's worth a shit...and sadly it ends up being one of only three things that are worth seeing.


So what follows is some good ol' Strip-Ouija (which doesn't reveal anything)...a guy puking out his guts, a death-by-pizza-slicer and a dumb jock getting his brain tickled. END SPOILERS.

All of this had the potential to be hilarious. The problem is, the so called "cartoon violence" that is used is actually too realistic to be funny! Now I know what you're thinking..."What, gore too realistic? Never!!!" But when you're obviously trying to be funny, it kills the mood to linger on the slow-drawn-out gore and torture scenes. Take Dead-Alive or From Dusk Till Dawn for instance, they are gory as hell...but they know how to be just cheesy and quick enough to pull off the joke.

Things don't improve with the overdone visual effects either, these horrendous post-production effects continue on throughout the course of the film. A 13 year old with a computer of equal age could pull off the same effects, probably better! Now there's nothing wrong with bad effects, they are one of the things that I love most about movies...but these effects...whew...they just become annoying.

SPOILER WARNING: Eventually it boils down to just being the older sister versus the cartoon villains. In order to defeat them, she enters the cartoon world, talks to The Devil (the only decent actor you'll see) and gains special powers. Commence memorable moment number two: "I want to be a super-hero...AND KICK YOUR ASS!"

Thing worth watching number three: The harrowing climax comes when the new Super-Hero plants a giant plastic battle-axe in Dr. Carnage's face. At this point my entire world turned upside-down and inside-out. Spewing out of the cave in his forehead are a bunch of little black fuzzy screaming creatures. To make things even better, they are all flat yet spinning in 3-Dimensions! But wait, there's more! After the fountain of indescribableness an ENTIRE SKELETON (also flat but in 3-D space) flies out of his fucking head!!! This entire segment is so incredibly bizarre I can't help but love it. I can only wonder what kind of mind-altering substances the visual-effects "artist" was on when he made this. END SPOILERS.

The making of documentary reveals a lot about the movie's quality, they shot the entire thing in 3 days! I have to commend those crazy bastards for that. The movie would have been 10 times funnier if they would have done the effects more practically...but of course that would require more than 3 days of filming.

Overall, only rent this thing if you want to see what you can do with 30 minutes of experimentation in After-Effects.




HUMOR: Pretty dull.
VIOLENCE: Fairly realistic, but that's the problem.
NUDITY: A few peeks, nothing special.