Sunday, September 22, 2019

The Banana Splits Movie




The Banana Splits Movie
2019
Director- Danishka Esterhazy
Cast- Dani Kind, Finlay Wojtak-Hissong, Celina Martin, Sara Canning, Steve Lund, Maria Nash, Naledi Majola, Romeo Carere, Richard White, Kiroshan Naidoo, Lia Sachs, Eric Bauza
            Older readers may remember the Banana Splits, a Hanna-Barbera produced kids show featuring giant silly looking animals. They were a kind of Sid and Marty Croft meet the Monkees, I think. This movie takes those characters and puts them in an insane horror setting.
            Harley is a kid who really loves The Banana Splits, even though the other kids his age have outgrown it. He has an older half-brother and mom who love him and a jerk father that cheats on his mom. For his birthday he’s being taken to a live taping of the show. The Splits, rather than being portrayed as actors in suits or animimatronics are presented as advanced robots, programmed to act for the show.
            On the same day that show gets cancelled, the robots go crazy. Their programming tells them the show must go on! They torture and kill all of the adults and hold the children captive, forcing them to watch so that the show can go on.
            When it comes to victims in a horror movie, you can put everyone in to two categories; likable, empathetic characters we root for and annoying douchebags that we hope die horribly. The biggest problem with this movie is that are too many of the latter; cheating husband, uncaring boss, abusive co-worker, over bearing parent, annoying millennial.
            The movie has some interesting gore scenes. I know people that were old enough to remember the show when it aired and they were looking forward to seeing this movie. Not being old enough, it didn’t have the same effect on me. Although it superficially sounds like something akin to Meet the Feebles, it’s not nearly as gory, funny or risky. I suspect this movie will find fans in one of two categories; the aforementioned older viewers and young college kids who can get high and trip on the wild visuals, like a giant cartoon dog with a Terminator endoskeleton ripping someone in half.

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