Color, 1989, 89 mins. Directed by Emmanuel Kervyn
Starring Florine Elslande, Danielle Daven, Robert Du Bois, Catherine Aymerie, Caroline Braeckman, Richard Cotica / Produced by Jonathan Rambert
Format: DVD - Troma (MSRP $24.95)
Here's the entire plot: a bunch of relatives convene for a party at the home of two sweet old aunties. An evil old woman arrives at the gate and delivers a mysterious box, which the aunties promptly open. Aunties turn into bald, clawed demons, running around and tearing everyone to pieces. The end.
Though hardly a great stylist, Belgian director Emmanuel Kervyn does a decent job of keeping things moving at a nice and bloody clip. Unfortunately, the headache inducing British accents haphazardly dubbed into the film ruin most of the admittedly eye-catching visual atmosphere; turn down the volume, however, and at least the avalanche of special effects makes for a decent party film. Unfortunately, Troma's DVD is something of a mixed bag. The film itself looks better than it ever has, not counting a few nicks and speckles inherent to the (cheaply done) negative. Unfortunately, the only existing materials in prime condition, at least in Troma's vaults, are severely edited from the original Belgian running time, deleting much of the juicy splatter in the process. The Troma VHS release was almost bloodless, and while the DVD reinstates a little of the gore, it's still far less complete than the edition on Danish video (circulated on the U.S. video underground), which actually clocks in at 81 minutes thanks to the vagaries of SECAM conversion. Don't despair, though; most of the gore is included on the DVD -- as a separate reel of gory outtakes. This long, long sampler of limb-tearing mayhem includes most of the deleted footage, though for some reason the last shot of the film is still trimmed down to omit the sound of an arm being torn off. Other DVD extras include an almost imcomprehensible commentary by Kervyn (though it does contain some nice tuggets of trivia if you pay attention), as well as a funny outtake reel of flubs and gags. To round things off, you get the usual Troma tour and T.I.T. test, as well as a dippy interview spoof with a "real rabid granny." It's really a shame that Troma couldn't present this film as it was originally intended, but at least they are aware of the extra footage and tried to make up for the loss in the extras department. Since this isn't exactly a notable classic of European horror cinema, not many people will be weeping anyway.
If Peter Jackson and Walerian Borowczyk decided to drop acid and do a bottom of the barrel zombie film with wretched dubbing, the end result would look a lot like Rabid Grannies, a trashy, gory epic that starts off like gangbusters but degenerates into a repetitive, plotless series of gory dismemberment gags. Of course, this should be enough to pass the time quite nicely for undiscriminating gorehounds.
