TURD ALERTS!

The fuzzy transfer on the dvd for Granny (1999) makes it look like a pirated copy, but it's not; this is as good as the film ever looked.

The poor sound & inevitably the acting underscore the amateur-video status of this poorly done independent slasher.

A synthesizer score by one of the actors-producers-writers, billing himself as "TOMI" (all caps required, which in an immature mind is evidence of hipness) is not as bad as the film itself but still pretty poor.

It all begins with some teens playing a halloween game pretending pig guts are Kevin's dead grandmother's rotten organs, feeling them up with their eyes closed.

The game is of a type typically performed by or for ten & twelve year olds, but this batch of dweebs aren't all that mature, so perhaps they'd also have fun fingerpainting & eating the mint-scented paste.

Before Granny actually shows up, we'll have to suffer long lame discussions as the cast welcomes Michelle (Katie Dugan) into their little club of dorks. It's just so hard not to nod off to sleep.

No one's even slightly interesting, so it won't likely be impactful when they start dying off either, though anything would be preferrable to their anal-banal talking heads.

Unexpectedly they hear weeping in the basement & that's the cue to send someone down there alone. The hoary old axe-in-the-head gag results.

Granny's costume consists of a nightgown, old-man mask, & a silver rayon wig, all worn by a guy. He's Sava Propovic, who was also one of the writers, producers, & musical soundtrack composers. Is he scary in the cheap costume? Not a bit.

You'd think it'd only take one killing to convince the rest of the club to get the hell out of the house, as it's not like this is a cabin in the woods & they are not isolated or locked up.

Some rather trivial gore-gags take them down until the last-girl-standing shoots the Granny dude, then herself then drops dead of a heart attack.

[SPOILER ALERT!] The coda at the graveyard three days later shows that only Michelle died. Everyone else is fine; they were pranking her as newcomer to their idiot club.

Yeah right, & never mind that that would mean the axe-through-the-head gag, observed by no one but the guy dressed up as Granny & the retroactively "pretend" victim, so it was kind of wasted effort if that was solely for Michelle's benefit.

At any rate, everyone feels guilty about not knowing their newest member had a heart condition. [END SPOILER ALERT]

There's also a twist behind the twist in the last-ditch effort to be clever, which it ain't. In all, it does sort of try to tell a story, so I guess you gotta give the uncreative team a half-ounce of kudo for the attempt. It's only too bad it was all just worthless effort.



Hooboy, who stomped on the skunk cabbages? Abberdine County Conjuror (2006) is a chaotic mess storywise, & there doesn't even seem to be any specific character who would be the titular "conjuror."

The guy who seems most likely to be the conjuror later appears to be only the first of the cowled zombies.

The actual villains of the tale are a couple moonshining witch gals who initially seemed like the conjuror's minions, but if they ever were that, they must've usurped him. For it to make sense you'll have to make up your own story; the film fails to do so.

Over two hours long which is at least a forty minutes too much, Abberdine County Conjuror was filmed in Travis County, Texas, with a $10,000 budget, though it looks like it could've been done for $3,000 or less.

It was released in a two-disc set of six films under the title Depraved Degenerates, then in a fifty-film box of four films per disc, Tomb of Terrors. It seems not to have had a separate release, as apparently even the seediest distributors of the most worthless films have their limitations.

At an isolated campground, a girl (Charlemagne Domiana) is wandering about at night in her undies, no reason given.

Eventually someone strangles her unconscioius. We might assume the strangler is the Abberdine County Conjuror himself, but that'll never be certain.

The zombie-or-perhaps-a-conjuror stirs a bubbling cauldron over a firepit. The kidnapped woman is locked up in a tiny shed, hard to tell exactly where, but looks like if you wanted to escape you'd just have to give the wall a couple kicks.

A young couple, Meg & Mike (Teresa Deasey & Ivan Sadowski, who like everyone else in this turd can't act), have heard about the campground disappearances & are searching for their friend Bev, who is in the shed. They don't think twice about showing up unprepared for bad stuff to happen, & treat it mainly like a regular camp-out.

As Mike sets up the campsite, Meg wanders off alone, because girls never know how to pitch tents & suchlike, so she'd just be in the way. Down the way apiece, there's a hilljane with a hick accent, a pretty fortuneteller named Jessie (Winter Wytchwood; I wish I were just making that up), who has set up her business outside her trailer at the other end of the campgrounds.

Meg while wandering about gaily in the known-to-be-dangerous campgrounds goes to get her fortune told, during which nothing happens, though we do learn Jessie sells bottles of potions which toward film's end prove to be hallucinogenic.

The primitive campgrounds is run by the moonshining white trash hilljanes, Edda & Raven (Natalie Geneva & Ellen Keefer), assisted by their zombie who may or may not be the titular conjuror but seems increasingly to be only a slave to the two witch babes. Later on there will be multiple zombies, we won't know where they came from.

Edna & Raven drop by the fortuneteller's campsite to beat her up, a foolishly unconvincing assault. Perhaps they were pissed off that her hallucinogenic potions were more popular than their own moonshine.

Meg, Jessie, and Molly (Liz Goddard) will be among the kidnapped victims whisked off to the witches' hideaway. The film's promise of sex & violence & gore is here achieved by exceedingly tepid borderline-lesbian bondage & cauldron-stirrings & off-screen beatings, very dull & silly.

Even if all you expect from a cheezy amateur sexploitation horror film is tits & ass with blood & guts, this is just awfully disappointing.

Sean Steel (Jeff Cooper, who is also the lamentable producer-director), dressed in a Renaissance fair leather outfit, has arrived at the campground, prepared to go on a zombie hunt. It's about this point in the film someone decided to add more zombies.

Steel uses his crossbow & Anachronist Society stainless steel hatchet to kill zombies, while Meg goes on a jolly walk such as so appeal to born-victims.

One of the zombies (who wear grey rubber gloves), who I guess is the chief zombie & perhaps also the titular conjuror but who can tell, beats the crap out of a voodoo doll, causing Meg to get all twisted up & agonized out there on the forest trail.

Molly manages to escape captivity & runs about until she finds some of Jessie's magic potion & goes on an acid trip.

Disappointing action scenes arise & unconvincing "zombie body parts" end up strewn about, nothing that much qualifies as a climax. In the coda, Molly & Meg in leather miniskirts have taken up Kung-fu Club decorative halbards with the promise of becoming zombie hunters & witchslayers thereafter, or so it appears.

copyright © by Paghat the Ratgirl