Chillerama (2011) starring Sean Paul Lockhart, Anton Troy, Gabrielle West, Joel David Moore, Ray Wise directed by Adam Green, Joe Lynch, Bear McCreary, Adam Rifkin, Tim Sullivan Movie Review

Chillerama (2011)   3/53/53/53/53/5


Ray Wise in Chillerama (2011)

The Night of the Living Daft

Cecil Kaufman (Richard Riehle) has been running his drive-in for years but it has finally come to an end and it is the late night. Wanting to give his customers one last night to remember he plans to show a series of rare horror b-movies starting with "Wadzilla" about a man whose doctor gives him an experimental drug due to his low sperm count but having horrific side effects which no one could have expected. But Kaufman maybe in for a shock of his own thanks to one of his staff having a fetish to do with corpses.

I had read some seriously negative reviews of "Chillerama" and I was expecting the worst but what I got was actually okay in a bad movie sort of way. But to clarify what I mean is actually not that easy because what we get in "Chillerama" is a series of short horror movies which parody horror b-movies from the past and these are connected by the horror which develops at the drive-in and it is individually they all work in an entertainingly daft sort of way with the emphasis more on the comedy than the horror. But to go in to detail would simply spoil things.

Richard Riehle in Chillerama (2011)

So to give you an insight into how intentionally and enjoyably bad these movies are let me tell you a bit more of the plot to "Wadzilla", so I guess spoiler alert is in order. Basically the medication this man takes doesn't increase his sperm count it just increases the size of his sperm and on a date with an attractive woman he unleashes a single sperm which develops teeth and goes on the rampage, eating what it comes across as it terrorizes New York till it sets its eyes on the Statue of Liberty which the military try to protect with the use of a giant condom. It sounds daft and it really is as it goes for a really low budget style, mirroring those b-movies of the 60s. But watched because it is daft "Wadzilla" ends up a lot of stupid fun.

The thing is that "Chillerama" is more comedy than horror and more intentionally bad spoof than anything else which if you were expecting more in the lines of a horror with a comedy edge you are going to be seriously disappointed. You are also going to be disappointed if you spotted a name you recognized within the cast list as no one really gets that long on screen and they all play intentionally over the top.

What this all boils down to is that "Chillerama" is just some daft fun, a series of mini movies which spoof old horror movies and do so with the emphasis on being entertainingly bad rather than scary and funny. But if you appreciate movies which intentionally try to be comically bad then this is going to be a riot especially when you get to the musical "I Was a Teenage Werebear".


LATEST REVIEWS