Sunday, May 17, 2015

Kill, Granny, Kill


Director - Jacob Ennis (Haunted Kentucky: Spirits of the Bluegrass)
Starring - Kristine Renee Farley (Volumes of Blood), Donna Swensen (Celebrity Ghost Stories), and T.J. Pack
Release Date - 2014
Genre - Horror
Tagline - "Look who Granny's having for dinner"
Format - DVD (Personal Collection)

Rating (out of 5):
     There is something absurd about the elderly killing and eating humans.  People often deem the elderly as innocent and home to wisdom far beyond their years.  They also see them as feeble and unable to provide for themselves once they reach a certain age.  That is one of the reasons people find killer granny flicks to be so ridiculous.  It's hard not to smile at the thought of little, old gram-gram killing people.  Sadly, killer granny films are not that common with only Rabid Grannies, Flesh Eating Mothers (which are middle-aged mothers and not actual grannies), and the new film Kill, Granny, Kill.  This is one of the films that I really wanted to review because it looked so much fun.  I attended Cinema Wasteland last month and met Henrique Couto who was selling Alternative Cinema films at his table and I was able to finally grab a copy of KGK and WNUF Halloween Special but that one is for another day!
     The film follows an elderly woman who lives alone but has a loving and caring grandson who visits daily to help her out anyway he can.  The two have a deep, dark secret.  They are killers and make country fixins out of human flesh.  Her grandson can't be with her all the time so she calls in a live-in nurse to stay with her but she has a set of rules she has to follow.  No foul language, no sex, and anything else that is fun and a sin.  She does not obey these rules and has sex with her ex-boyfriend resulting in them both getting the ax.  Her sister comes looking for her and she, too, gets the ax resulting in a police investigation.  The police enter the home where they find Granny's late husband's corpse in the bed room and attempt to arrest her.  Her grandson intervenes and is fatally shot.  Granny and her grandson's pregnant girlfriend are able to flee taking with them the corpse of her late husband and grandson.  
     I had no idea which route this film would go.  When I first received news on this film I assumed it would be a horror comedy in the same line as Rabid Grannies with, what I had hoped, influences from Troma.  However, the film was far from that and was actually a serious horror film by most standards.  My first thought when I heard of this film was that it had better be a comedy otherwise a killer granny flick would be unbearable to watch.  With that being said, Kill, Granny, Kill was a serious horror flick, for the most part, and still delivered on the goods.  The acting in this one is indie fantastic.  The entire cast shows a large amount of talent and without them the film would not be watchable.  The whole cast create some rather memorable characters with Donna Swensen stealing the show.  This talented actress needs to reprise her role as the murdering granny in a sequel and soon.  The story for this one is one we have seen before with the movies previously mentioned as the best examples of this story.  Though this story is not that original, it is serious in tone which does set itself apart from the other films using this same story.  Finally, the film does have a few on screen kills but they are nothing that bloody and spectacular.  The kills that we do get are a bit of a let down.  Also, the practical effects are decent but they are minimal and just enough to make the basic kill scenes watchable.  Overall, Kill, Granny, Kill is a fantastic indie film that truly deserves to be watched.  The film is not perfect but damn is it entertaining.  Watch it because it is truly a modern classic.





No comments:

Post a Comment