Shrunken heads

   I have to admit I wasn’t expecting much when I watched this movie.  Normally I would love to watch a movie about vigilante shrunken heads but for some reason I just wasn’t feeling it when I sat down to watch it.  Despite this handicap the movie turned out to be fairly entertaining and more importantly I was going get a review out of it.

            This movie is an odd mix of an after school special and a gruesome zombie horror movie.  I didn’t think this was possible and I’m still not sure how such an unholy beast can exist but it definitely does.  This starts out with one of our heroes, Tommy, helping his dad in the local grocery store by sweeping the floor.  Shortly after we meet Bill, Tommy’s best friend, and Bill asks Tommy, in a way that would make Beaver Cleaver look like a juvenile delinquent, if he wants to come get some comic books.  As the bosom buddies make their way to the local news stand they run into the local gang that is harassing the new kid in town named Freddie.  This is where the movie really starts to establish that stereotypes are underused in movies.  Now we all know that the best kinds of gangs are Italian and this one is no different.  While the members lack the traditional accent the leader’s name (Vinnie) is enough to assure us that the writers know what they are doing.  Of course no gang would be complete without the girlfriend of the leader so here is where we get our first glimpse of Sally, a spunky young girl with a heart of gold.  Tommy, being the hero that he is, stands up for this unfortunate lad and chases the gang off with a little help from Sally.  Our dynamic duo, now having been transformed into a terrific trio, make their way to the comics.  Once there we get our first glimpse of Mr. Sumatra who is from Hati and is rumored to have been both a former police officer and magician.  Now if you thought the plot was going to pick up once we saw a voodoo priest (I sure did) then you would be wrong.  Instead of the plot picking up we get to learn that Billy is a “jelly bean junky.”  This sets up a plot device rarely seen, in which jelly bean play a critical role in the movie.  When it happens don’t say I didn’t warn you.

            Now that we have met all the major players the plot can get rolling and well… it sort of does.  We soon learn that Vinnie’s gang is collecting protection money from the local merchants for an androgynous gangster called Big Moe.  I know I may not be the best judge of people but I seriously thought that Big Moe was a man for most of the movie but it turns out he is actually a she and she actually prefers the company of ladies.  Back to Mr. Sumatra who, being a voodoo priest, will have none of this rampant crime and we finally get to see some of his voodoo magic.  He scares off these two bit hoods and he blows dust at their car and making it go wild.  Why he doesn’t just use his magic right now to teach these thugs a lesson is beyond me but if he did we wouldn’t have the rest of the movie and let me tell you it really starts to get wild. 

            At this point Tommy and his friends get fed up with Vinnie and his gang ruling the neighborhood so they decide to watch the gang

 to try and end their days of crime.  In short they catch the gang stripping a car and turn the tape over to the police.  When Big Moe hears of this she (or is it he?) needs to have a talk with those meddling kids and has them brought to her warehouse.  The writers not wanting us to forget their firm grasp on overused stereotypes has Big Mo repeatedly say “I want you should” to the point where they had to be putting significant effort into the dialogue so they could fulfill the entire movies requirement in the next two minutes.  So our neighborhood heroes are put into Big Moe’s back room, coincidently with her gambling receipts.  Tommy decides he hasn’t messed with this gender challenged gangster enough so he decides to escape with the receipts.  Now we get to see the fury that is Big Mo.  She pulls out two large hand guns and a shotgun from her coat, why she is walking around with these in there is beyond me.  I figure it has something to do with the lack of gender identity but I’m not sure how exactly.  This brings us to a shootout that is overkill (pun intended).  Vinnie and a couple of his hoods catch up to our three friends and continually blast away at them while they are standing against a wall to the point where I’ve seen less ammo used in Schwarzenegger movies.  Sally is really hurt by this so Mr. Sumatra comforts her by saying this hurts him like a “dagger in his liver.”  This may actually be a real Haitian saying but I just thought it was plain funny so I included it. 

            Finally Mr. Sumatra has had enough of these crimes so he breaks into the funeral home and cuts off the three boys heads with a hacksaw.  Now we finally get to the voodoo goodness that this movie has been promising for a long time now.  As a side note for anyone interested in making their own undead shrunken heads; it involves dropping a cat into a huge bubbling vat.  Mr. Sumatra’s apartment is like a voodoo hut and he starts the process of shrinking these heads for his undead army.  Remember how I told you that jelly beans are very important; well don’t say I didn’t warn you.  While Tommy and Freddie were fairly easy to resurrect Billy seems to like being dead instead of being undead.  To fix this Mr. Sumatra force feeds Billy, as a shrunken head, some jelly beans to temp him back from the grave which surprisingly works. While Billy may not have wanted to come back from the dead this gives me a great idea on how to save people that are near death.  All anyone has to do is walk around with their favorite snack and if you are about to die just have someone force feed it to you, it should bring you back to the land of the living with no problem. 

Now that our heroes are back from the dead its time to start their training.  Mr. Sumatra does it by immediately throwing them into the air, at which point these shrunken heads find out they can fly.  Now I know there is such a thing as tough love but I think it’s a bit mean to raise someone from the dead and not five minutes later throw them up in the air.  I figure being resurrected earns you at least a good twenty minute breather.

            Anyway we skip ahead a year when their training is complete and we now have on our hands three flying vigilante shrunken heads each with its own power.  Tommy being the ringleader gets the best power, the ability to shoot lighting from his head, Billy gets fangs to bite people and Tommy didn’t make out so well; he got a switchblade to carry in his mouth.  If I were Tommy I would feel cheated; granted I was resurrected from the dead with the ability to fly, but come on a switchblade.  That is pretty much Mr. Sumatra saying he was too lazy to think up a good third power.  We now see them stop their first crime by killing two muggers.  A bit of overkill for the crime but a crime is a crime and so these muggers are turned into zombies that help clean up the city, literally.  They wander around picking up trash.  Shortly thereafter the trio of heads start their reign of vengeance by killing two of their murderers, and these two come back to weed gardens.  At this rate the city will never have looked better. 

            Not to lose the after school special vibe we learn Sally has never gotten over Tommy’s death. Tommy meets up with her at his grave and Sally isn’t nearly as upset as she should be.  I guess being obsessed for a year with a dead boy will make it seem perfectly normal for his disembodied floating head to come up to you and mind meld so you can learn his side of the story.  After that we get to see a very disturbing scene in which Tommy floats up Sally’s shirt and rests in a, shall we say “intimate” place.  Now that I think about it we lost the after school special vibe long ago and now we just have a creepy pseudo-necrophilia vibe going on.

            Sally knowing the truth goes to talk to the local witch doctor and is easily persuaded to help him deliver capital punishment Haitian style.  These two, along with their personal army of the undead, burst into the hideout of Big Moe where Vinnie just happens to be at the time.  Let me just say you haven’t seen vengeance until you’ve seen a girl walk into a room with a halo of orbiting shrunken heads hell bent on revenge followed by a bunch of zombies.  The undead make short work of the hideout but Vinnie and Big Moe escape with Sally as a hostage.  After an amazing chase scene in which the shrunken heads are run over and hit by a shotgun blast Vinnie and Big Moe are captured.  Mr. Sumatra exacts his punishment on them by turning Vinnie and Big Moe into zombies that, what else, clean up graffiti.  We also get the happy ending of Sally becoming the local voodoo high priestess in charge of the shrunken heads.  All in all a very feel good ending. Although I must say I mainly felt good because the movie was over. 

            It’s hard to make a cheesy horror movie that I don’t enjoy but this one came close at times and amazed me at other.  However since it was about vigilante shrunken heads I feel I must give it four stars. Out of how many you ask?  Well I’m not sure, I just felt like slapping an arbitrary rating on it and letting you wonder.

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