Check this out. But only if you aren’t easily disturbed because It’s the trailer for the 2019 Warner video release of The Banana Splits Movie.
In case you haven’t clicked the link, it’s better late than never to say the “film” is a slasher movie and as such falls into a genre I rarely watch without some sort of reason.
I happened to fall asleep watching Harry Potter on Sy Fy and woke up to this shit a half-hour in.
Now look. Don’t get me wrong here, okay? I know what you’re thinking. And I get it. Most people alive today who would watch a slasher flick don’t remember the Hanna-Barbera kid’s show that ran for three miserable seasons, giving kids permanent brain damage. It was a labor to watch, although I still get a kick out of the theme song. I could listen to it once every, say, 50 years.
Someone once said that there was nothing else to do with the Banana Splits.
Well yeah. They only did three seasons, two of those in the 1960s. Why the fuck did anyone have to do anything with them? It was bloody stupid then, and this movie made everything worse. However, if left to be a horror movie instead of a slasher flick, it may have worked. The first victim, on seeing his killer up close, worked very well. Hell, it got me, and that’s hard to do. That plastic, grinning head just there, not moving. Then the Split shoves a prop lollipop down Stevie’s throat and kills him.
And did I mention that the Banana Splits are animatronic? Yep. Sure. And they’re pissed that their show just got cancelled and the episode being taped in the beginning was supposed to be their last. Aside from the angst and personal issues of the future victims, that’s it. Standard slasher formula.
This one’s dumber than most, though. I watched it for 30 minutes that I can’t get back.
My list of top ten worst movies of all time has just changed. That seldom happens.
The thing is, there are way more people alive now who never saw or even heard of the Banana Splits television series than those who have, or did, choose whichever word you want; grammar has long been cast aside anyway. Or, if you prefer, “anyways.” Just don’t tell me either way, okay? Ignorance is bliss for everyone, is it not?
Hey, all I’m tryna say is, there are no rules. For anything. Nothing is out of bounds, nor is anything sacred. You see people. They cannot care any less who died during this pandemic. All they care about is going back to bars, movies and parties. Inoculated or not, they really don’t care about that; they believe they’ve been wrongfully denied their basic rights. We’re ready for the next killer virus, aren’t we?
So fuck. Why worry about some stupid movie which parodies a stupid kid’s show, right? A show everyone who remembers it wishes they didn’t. Or, if they watched an episode recently, found that it’s not so kid friendly after all. I mean, look at the fucking credits. That shit is scary.
Okay, maybe not to you. If you cut your teeth eating popcorn to A Nightmare On Elm Street then nothing can scare you now. Not even real life.
Or maybe you do remember a time when horror movies gave you the shits without being slasher pictures. When just the sight of Vincent Price or Bela Lugosi was enough to do the job of scaring you until you had to use the rest rooms. When drive-in theaters dotted the country and nobody did much making out when such actors as they were onscreen, but you still wanted your date close on that bench seat.
If you’re asking what a drive-in theater was, you were born too late. You’ve missed out on a real treat.
A time when some things just weren’t done, and I mean mostly in cinema. Ratings kept would-be blockbusters in line. The coveted “G” rating became more difficult to achieve after a while. Perhaps the last of the 60s; I couldn’t say.
The movie in the spotlight here was released to video directly. And it made money because location shooting was nil and sets and mediocre actors were all combined for the cheap. How could it fail to turn at least a hundred buck’s profit?
Could it be that some people actually remember the stupid kid’s show, and relished the trailer that clearly displayed some lunatic screenwriter shitting all over it?
In various sources the film is listed as horror or comedy. There’s nothing funny here. There’s no comedy, not even the dark kind. I thought 2003’s Freddy vs. Jason had some funny stuff, but that’s different, two motion picture franchises battling it out in an unusual parody. One that just got away with being born from slasher schlock.
On the other hand, neither does Splits qualify as horror. In a scene where one of the Splits robots cuts a man in half, nothing is left to imagine. His intestines are quite visible. That’s just the obligatory cheap shit that really just demonstrates how shallow audiences have become. Nobody wants to think during a movie anymore. There need only be a thread of a plot, and sometimes none at all. Just put a cast together and give them guns and let them blow shit up. Everyone will love it. It’s true.
The day is coming when theaters will disappear forever. Even DVDs will cease being pressed. It’s all gone to shit, and what will be left, all that will be left, are streaming services. It’s well begun. You will have to pick one or two, because the price of a subscription will be prohibitive. The networks will have to do the same to even be seen, much less exist.
We have sunk to levels I once imagined happening only in Orwellian lore.
We have met our mortal enemy, and he is us.
This has long been coming.
Santa Claus Conquers The Martians should have been taken as the warning it was. It served that purpose better than any chapter of the Book of Revelation. Or “Revelations,” if you prefer, because fuck it. English isn’t even English anymore.
We’re doomed.
DOOMED.
Memoirs of an American Asshole 