Granny (1999)

Pack: Tomb of Terrors
Disc: 7

Subgenre(s): Slasher

Year: 1999

Rated: Unrated
Length: 58 minutes

Director: Boris Pavlovsky
Writer: Boris Pavlovsky
Starring: Kate Dugan, Sava Popovic, Tomi

Synopsis: Eight college students are stalked and killed by a maniac dressed in a hag mask.

Screencaps:

Review: Although Granny is simply an even more low-budget clone of April Fool's Day, at least it's nicely filmed. The house is immaculate and well lit, and the overall production values are very good. It looks like a real movie rather than a glorified YouTube video.

Having said that, the characters aren't very well developed or likeable. The only two who really stand out from the group are Vic (T.J. Bigbee), who comes across like a young Anthony Perkins, and the oversexed Natalie (Rebecca O'Marrah). The others are poorly differentiated from each other although attempts are made to highlight their worst attributes: Jason (David Coleman) thinks he's funny, Tom (Tomi) likes to party, Monica (Annemieke Van Der Meer) is a prude, Pete (John Stoops) is a bit of a boozer, Kristine (Nathalie Ohnena) is vain and jealous, and Michelle (Katie Dugan) is just a virgin. They are all generic and satisfying victims for anyone who wants to rid the world of obnoxious teenagers.

When Granny (Sava Popovic) shows up as just another crazy killer in a bad Hallowe'en witch mask, the movie becomes a formulaic slasher with no inventive deaths to make up for it. The problems with any slasher are merely who is going to do the slaying, why are they doing it, how gory will the deaths be, and in what order will the victims die? Having established its killer with no motive, and the gore level being dependent on the budget, Granny answers the final question with one word: predictably.

There's nothing in Granny that hasn't been done better before, and even the "twist" is predictable for regular horror fans. The level of violence used in the kill scenes makes no sense once the joke is revealed so the ending is nothing but a cop-out which fails to make the story cleverer than it really is. A further unnecessary twist ruins things even more.

Having looked at the other titles on disc 7 of "Tomb of Terror", Granny is, unfortunately, the best of another bad lot.

Most Memorable Moment(s): After playing with pig guts, Natalie and Kristine don't put soap on her hands before washing for all of 2 seconds.

Originality: None. April Fool's Day (1986) did it first.

Best Line(s): "We're all praying to the porcelain god before the night's over."
Worst Line(s): "We took on a power that wasn't ours to take."

Best Effect(s): The axe wound on Jason's head.
Worst Effect(s): The clean knife blade seen during Monica's stabbing.

Goriness (out of 10): 3
Sexiness (out of 10): 1
Profanities (out of 10): 2

Hottest Actor/Actress: Rebecca O'Marrah as Natalie.

Picture Quality: Average
Audio Quality: Average

Rating (out of 10): 4

Trailer:


IMDb or Wiki: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0225899/

Final Thoughts: A clone of April Fool's Day with less interesting characters.