It’s October. Time to talk horror. This year I’m reviewing a different horror movie each day of the month.
I like Full Moon Productions. When I was a kid I loved that Dollman vs. Demonic Toys not only served as an all-encompassing sequel for two films, but for Bad Channels as well. When I saw the awesome, hand-painted advertisement for Puppet Master 3 in the back of a Fangoria, I went straight to the video shop and sought out the entire trilogy. I never really cared much for Subspecies, but I confess an unusual fondness for Tim Matheson’s Jack Deth of the Trancers franchise and the whip-cracking Musetta Vander in 1994’s Oblivion. What was really cool about Full Moon is they did crossover films two decades before mainstream Hollywood caught on.
As Shrunken Heads opens, a street gang makes life hell for a trio of young boys who just want to read their comic books in peace. The kids are murdered when they get caught stealing gambling slips from the gang’s hideout; without those slips, the gang won’t know who actually won their bets and who didn’t. In theory, the gang will have to pay everyone who gambled that week. (Because we all know kid-killing street gangs have a reputation for being honest.)
That’s when a voodoo priest (veteran character actor Julius Harris) goes to the funeral parlor with a hacksaw and decapitates the boys’ corpses. He shrinks the heads, revives them with magic, and spends a year training them how to fly and develop their superpowers so that they can get their revenge. The special effects during this sequence are surprisingly good.
It’s easy to see why Charles Band (the founder of Full Moon Productions) was so good at making straight-to-video films feel more expensive than they actually were: he was a master at calling in favors. The opening credits are scored by none other than Danny Elfman and it’s probably no coincidence the film’s directed by the composer’s unknown brother. “You wanna make a movie? Get your brother to do the theme and we can talk.”
Big Mama, the leader of the gang, is played by Meg Foster. Foster is among my favorite B-movie actresses. Unlike Zach Galligan, who once tried to distance himself from genre films, Foster fully embraced the nature of her career, playing everything from cyborg cops to the traditional love interest. You probably remember her as the female lead in They Live. Her unusually pale eyes are recognizable from space.
Which is why I was taken by surprise when I did not initially recognize her in Shrunken Heads. I initially thought she was a man and those oddly colored eyes are concealed by contact lenses. Her unusual look is only heightened by the strange creative decision to put her in drag. Something about her look in this film reminds me of the characters from a Fallout game.
Shrunken Heads is a feel-good movie for horror hounds. It’s light on the gore, but heavy on the charm. The unlikely relationship between the fifteen year old girl and one of the shrunken heads is initially creepy (Intentionally so… I think?), but against all odds, it’s endearing by the end. And speaking of the ending, it doesn’t disappoint.
So, do you want to see three children murdered in the streets, only to be resurrected as discombobulated heads? No? Then you don’t want to see this movie. But if the answer is yes, you’re gonna have a great time. Stick around for the post-credits scene.
Come back at midnight Central Time for the next movie.
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