Directed by: Adam Rifkin, Tim Sullivan, Adam Green and Joe Lynch
Starring: Richard Riehle, Adam Rifkin, Ray Wise, Kane Hodder, Joel David Moore, Lin Shaye
Sometimes, horror anthologies are just what your body needs. They’re perfect for people like me with small attention spans and big hearts. If you’re lucky, you’ll find one that is well done and that won’t make you want to die a violent death at the hands of an outdoor bathroom riddled with leeches (Sleepaway Camp 2 anyone? Huh? Huh?). Unfortunately, if you find yourself in the hands of a horror anthology gone bad, there’s little you can do except cry. Sorry to disappoint hopeful fans or people with bad taste, but Chillerama stinks…mostly.
Throwing it back to the schlocky, B-movie grade drive-in movies, Chillerama takes us on a journey through four segments of varying levels of disgust, comedy and penis humor. Not to play the so-called Femi-nazi card here, but I think few people will disagree with the fact that Chillerama is heavily catered towards the male horror fans in the world. The anthology may be described as being a "cinematic love letter to horror and film fans" but it's really more of a cinematic love letter to people with dicks.
Not that women can’t identify with penis and sperm humor, gay werewolves or cutaways of poop imagery, but I always like to imagine how Chillerama would be if the tables were turned. If there was a segment all about period jokes and vaginal odors, people would be so annoyed and disgusted, right? It wouldn’t be so bad if Chillerama had some form of redeem-ability in terms of its female characters, but unfortunately that is not the case.
Almost all women characters — save for one...sort of — display their giant boobs, give blowjobs at the drop of a hat, and are used merely as foils for the funnier, more interesting and clothed male characters. I don’t usually make it a point to bitch and moan about this kind of stuff, but Chillerama makes me very sad about it.
There is one exception to all this crap. Adam Green’s segment, "The Diary of Anne Frankenstein," does humor and horror correctly. Instead of catering to a male audience who thrives on the so-called hilariousness of penis jokes and calling people fags, Green caters to human beings who thrive on the hilariousness of making fun of Adolf Hitler.
Humor isn’t something I take lightly. It takes more than a poop joke to make me laugh, for instance —yet I kept laughing out loud during almost all of "The Diary of Anne Frankenstein." Green has done something truly worthwhile with his 30 minutes, and if you have to watch only one segment in Chillerama, definitely make it this one.
Aside from that, Chillerama is pretty terrible as far as movies go. In fact, according to my level of taste, the bulk of the anthology is unwatchable. This is especially true for Tim Sullivan’s "I Was a Teenage Werebear," a '50s-style romp filled with ear numbing musical numbers. It’s offensive in just about every way possible, and not because it’s about gay werewolves. Openly gay Tim Sullivan often treads heavily with homoerotic horror and humor, but that doesn’t mean he can make a really terrible movie and get away with it. This segment is so bad that I recommend fast forwarding past it.
The rest isn’t much better. Adam Rifkin’s "Wadzilla" is outrageously ridiculous at times, yet poorly executed in the long run. As I mentioned earlier, it’s not very interesting to people who do not have nightmares about their sperm attacking the world. Sure, the ending “money shot” is pretty hilarious and gross, but ultimately the segment does very little to win me over.
Joe Lynch’s "Zom B Movie" is forgettable and has the grave misfortune of following "The Diary of Anne Frankenstein," which means that it reeks in comparison. Ultimately, Chillerama is just one giant miss. It relies far too heavily on the element of gross-out humor and seems to forget that, underneath it all, there should still be some semblance of a coherent movie. Sure, it gets points for taking the drive-In, B-movie concept and inflating it with a modern sort of life, but that doesn’t mean I can forget that it’s horrible.
My honest opinion is that Chillerama should be re-named "The Diary of Anne Frankenstein" and that everything else should be deleted and banished to really shitty movie-ville. Just so we’re all clear, "The Diary of Anne Frankenstein" gets 4 stars. Chillerama? 1.5 stars at best.
Rating: (1.5 out of 5):
I agree 100% with this review, and I think a big part of why Adam Green's segment is so wonderfully executed is that Green really is at home in the 'short film' genre. His shorts often go viral and are met with acclaim, because it's a medium he's really comfortable with manipulating. Diary of Anne Frankenstein is HILARIOUS because it's so completely over-the-top--- we just saw Chillerama at a screening in Austin where Adam told us that the lead actor who plays Hitler couldn't understand/speak a word of German throughout the production. It really was just an exercise in hilarity all the way through, with a very Mel Brooks vibe to it. LOVED it.
The rest of the film I could've done without. I'm a little too old to enjoy almost two hours of penis jokes, more disgusting body fluid swapping than "Dead Alive", gross juvenile humor, and gay jokes. It was as if they asked the guys from "Jackass" to make a horror film and gave them 40 dollars and some weed to do it with. Everything felt like an inside joke that was maybe hilarious when they were shooting the shit among their friends ("Oh yeah man, what if like, your sperm just got fucking HUGE and like, took over the world?! That'd be fuckin' rad, man!"), but fell completely flat when translated to screen.
I got a complimentary copy at the screening and Diary of Anne Frankenstein will be the only reason I take off the shrink wrap.