DVD Review: Chillerama

When I first got the email asking if we’d like to review an advanced copy of Chillerama, I grew hesitant when I saw the film’s tagline: “The Ultimate Midnight Movie.” For the last decade or so, there have been a glut of films that are meant to pay homage to old B-movies, but they normally just use this as an excuse to have no budget, crappy special effects, terrible actors, and even worse scripts. They say they’re being tongue-in-cheek, but they very rarely ever succeed at being funny, let alone entertaining in even the “so bad it’s good” way that the B-movies they’re spoofing actually are. But, as I always say, I’ll watch anything once, so I put my expectations in check and told them to send Chillerama posthaste. Much to my surprise, this isn’t your typical half-assed love note to the drive-in.

The Movie

As with most horror anthologies, Chillerama has a bookend story that helps tie the other segments together. In this case, the bookend takes place at a drive-in movie theatre’s final night of business. The popcorn becomes tainted by a mysterious blue ooze, and the next thing you know, everyone has become a zombie. But in keeping with the tone of most of Chillerama, these zombies don’t want to eat your flesh – they want to hump you into oblivion until you’re torn apart in a most gory, ridiculous way.

Chillerama is potty humor taken to the next level. Between Wadzilla, about a mutant sperm that has its way with the Statue of Liberty, to a short segment called Deathication, a non-stop gross-out clip reel that features more peanuts than a Baby Ruth bar, and more splatters than a Jackson Pollock painting, the film is little more than one junior high-level joke after another. Not that there’s anything wrong with that if you know what you’re getting yourself into. The only problem with Chillerama is that, with only a few words of description, I’ve summed up 3/5 of the movie for you. There’s not much more to the three aforementioned segments other than a hook (sex zombies, monster sperm, and poop, respectively). If the movie only had these three segments, I’d give you my grade right now and you could be on your merry way, with your mind made up as to whether Chillerama was worth your time. However, there are those lingering 2/5 that require I add a little more to this review, and might sway you to consider giving it a chance.

The first interesting segment is called, I Was a Teenage Werebear. The humor is still crass, bloody, and pretty offensive, but there’s a kernel of a great idea in here that could easily be used for a more serious film to explore at greater depth.

Ricky is a young high school kid who spends most of his time out on the sunny beaches of California. He has a girlfriend, but for whatever reason, he simply can’t get excited about being physical with her, despite the fact that she throws herself at him. Why? Because anytime Talon, the good-looking leader of a group of ruffians, strolls by, Ricky is drawn to him like a moth to a flame. Then, after Talon bites Ricky on the butt cheek during a gym class wrestling match, Ricky starts to notice his feelings towards Talon are becoming overwhelmingly strong. Ricky fights his love for Talon, until he can fight no more, and he changes into a werebear. He doesn’t turn into a big, furry animal, mind you; he turns into a hairy-chested, leather-wearing gay man in assless chaps (Yes, that kind of bear). By the way, did I mention Werebear is a musical?

A lot of the tropes of the werewolf genre – fighting one’s own instincts, the rush of finally “transforming” for the first time, and being afraid to reveal yourself to society – fit perfectly as a metaphor for a closeted gay person on the brink of coming out. This is an idea that could make for something really special if handled in a longer format and with a more serious tone. In Chillerama, though, it’s presented as over-the-top humor. For example, when a coach tries to molest Ricky, he winds up smashing the coach’s head between his knees, allowing the too-red fake blood to splatter all over his chest in what can only be described as a grey matter money shot. The segment has a lot of potential to be something more, but it falls back on shock value and, ultimately, falls short of greatness. Still, from now on, anytime I watch a werewolf film, I’ll be thinking about it as a gay metaphor, so Werebear is definitely memorable.

The one segment that I can wholeheartedly recommend, though, is The Diary of Anne Frankenstein. This short film seems like it was made for an entirely different movie, as there’s only a little bit of cartoony violence and the sexual humor is a lot more subtle. Instead, Anne Frankenstein relies on absurdist humor to bridge the gap between the ancient Jewish folktale of the Golem and Mary Shelley’s classic novel of the flesh reborn.

The film starts with Anne Frank and her family in hiding. Young Anne discovers her grandfather’s diary, detailing his attempts to resurrect the dead, from a time back before the family shortened their surname out of embarrassment when grandpa’s experiments became public knowledge. Suddenly, Nazi soldiers break through the wall with der Furher in tow, who quickly takes Dr. Frankenstein’s journal in order to create a super soldier that will help him win the war. Back at his secret lab, Hitler successfully creates his monster, but it takes the form of a Hasidic Rabbi with a huge head and Popeye forearms, whom he calls Meshugannah. It’s only later that the creature realizes, “Hey, wait a second. I’m Jewish! And these are Nazis!”, and goes on a murderous rampage, using everything from a menorah, a dreidel, and Hitler’s detached arm to mete out his revenge.

I laughed so hard during Anne Frankenstein that I sometimes had to pause it to make sure I didn’t miss anything. Unfortunately, it’s the type of subtle, clever humor that isn’t funny when described, but is outright hilarious when you see it acted out on screen. From Hitler pinky swearing that he won’t shoot the Franks, to seeing a Nazi soldier thrown into the air, only to cut to a black stuntman that is taking the brunt of the landing, it’s the kind of stuff you have to see to fully appreciate. Perhaps my favorite aspect, though, is the dialog. There’s a making-of featurette on the DVD that tells us that every actor in the film, except Joel David Moore (Avatar), who plays Hitler, can speak German. So everyone else is saying their lines correctly (with subtitles), but Moore spends the entire film spouting nonsense that simply sounds correct when said with an outrageous German accent. If you pay close attention, you’ll catch some really funny bits of dialog from pop culture that he’s thrown in for good measure, like Osh-Kosh B’Gosh, Wienerschnitzel, Salacious Crumb, and, my favorite, “Sclemiel! Schlimazel! Hasenpfeffer!” from the opening of Laverne & Shirley. I wish I could describe every funny moment in The Diary of Anne Frankenstein, but it really is something you have to see to appreciate; it’s so far above every other segment that it feels like it was added to the film by mistake. It is, by far, the best reason to watch Chillerama.

At first viewing Chillerama is a simple, dirty-minded joke of a movie. But as I ran back through it to refresh my memory for the review, I found I was stopping more than I was fast-forwarding just so I could watch a particularly well done zombie attack or to see a gigantic spermatozoa rampaging through the streets of New York City. The film’s charm is not immediately apparent, but on subsequent viewings, Chillerama has grown on me like a nasty case of jock itch. And I have a feeling the demented minds behind this film wouldn’t have it any other way.

The Extra Features

The extra features on the DVD are nothing spectacular, but it’s nice they’re included at all. There are making-of featurettes for Teenage Werebear and Anne Frankenstein, but they’re pretty standard stuff. A couple of Comic-Con interviews and the director’s commentaries cover a lot of the same ground on the origin of each segment of the film, with bits and pieces from the production thrown in for good measure. You’ll also find trailers for Wadzilla, Werebear, and Chillerama itself, as well as a few deleted scenes that mostly deserved to be cut. The Wadzilla deleted scenes feature animatics for the special effects, but I wish there would have been more in-depth coverage of the sperm effects, because they were done by the infamous Chiodo Brothers of Killer Klowns from Outer Space and Team America fame. Overall, it’s a nice, but fairly standard round-up of special features that you’ll watch once, but probably never revisit.

The Verdict

While it’s not one to watch with the family gathered around the Christmas tree, Chillerama is perfect for those nights when you have some sick-minded friends over for pizza and beer. All of the segments are entertaining, but The Diary of Anne Frankenstein is the real stand-out, and probably the one you’ll rewatch more than any other. For the most part, though, this is lowest common denominator, over-the-top humor. But when you consider that the drive-in films Chillerama is paying a loving homage to were playing to the same crowd, it seems fitting.