"The first slasher musical"
We needed that first slasher musical, because if there's anything slasher movies need, it's a little more
gaiety! Maybe a roundelay. Whatever that is. What the hell, make it two
roundelays.
You would probably guess two things from the title: (1) it's not on the
Oscar shortlist; (2) it goes for a "campy" aesthetic. You'd be right on both
counts. It's the kind of movie John Waters would make if he had to use
your dad's old video recorder from the seventies.
The familiar plot pits the fun-loving discomaniacs against the cartoon
bad guys who want to tear down the beloved disco-slash-fun-center and
profit from it by converting it to something completely without laughter,
like a Solomon Brothers branch office or a Yakov Smirnoff performance.
But ...
It's not an ordinary bad movie. I'll give it that. The typical bad
movie has only a few weapons in its arsenal: a bad storyline built on
clichés, carried by bad dialogue, delivered by bad actors, photographed
badly. This film does have those things, but it has so much more to offer.
It also has bad jokes, bad music, bad singing, and - yes - even the highly
coveted bad dancing. It's like Singin' in the Rain, as performed on the
Bizarro planet.
Best of all, the cinematography even offers the generous bonus of
psychedelic hippie-style photography and lighting, with fish-eye lenses,
kaleidoscope effects, Batman-style camera tilts, and hallucinatory sounds
- all used to simulate a "head trip" - in a musical number! That was
groovy, brother.
The characters have names like Jellybean and Crumbcake, and one actor
played the triple role of Acid Trip Angel, Furry Cow, and Lounge Singer.
Far out, man. It blew my mind more emphatically than Pam Anderson blew
Tommy Lee.
In fact, this film did quite a bit of blowing.
But in a good way/
To be serious for a second: if you really want to see a pretty good effort at a splatter musical,
skip this and get Troma's Poultrygeist instead.
