I’m not going to lie--I don’t even know where to start with Grotesque. However, that’s okay because I’m not sure anyone involved knew where to start or finish when they were making it. If you think that’s a condemnation, think again; I’m actually damning this sucker with faint praise because it actually manages to be quite entertaining despite how terribly nonsensical it is.
Lisa (Linda Blair, far removed from stardom) and her friend (Donna Wilkes, even further removed) need a relaxing getaway, so they decide to head up to her parents’ mountain retreat. Her father (Guy Stockwell) is a well-known horror film director, so this abode attracts the attention of a group of “punkers” (not punks, if we’re to believe this script), who decide to bum-rush the place because they’re convinced it houses a stash of money or cocaine (or maybe both). They begin to terrorize the family before they’re stalked by something possibly inhuman that’s roaming the grounds.
That’s just the first half hour or so; after that, Grotesque doesn’t so much go off the rails as much as it spectacularly crashes right before your eyes. Beginning life as an absurd home invasion flick, it quickly bombs its way through being a police procedural and a revenge movie before wrapping itself up in goofy meta fashion. It actually begins that way, too, as the opening credits are set against this terrible looking scene that apparently involves witchcraft and definitely features a droning monologue. I experienced great relief when it was revealed to be Stockwell’s latest movie, which his producer hails as being great (when it clearly isn’t). As Grotesque then actually unfolds, it doesn’t really prove to be much better than that movie-within-the-movie, but it doesn’t manage to be too boring. Saddled with ridiculous dialogue, botched line readings, and performances that range from “bonkers” to “sleepwalking,” it’s pretty woeful--unless, of course, you like this stuff.
And if you’ve made it to this paragraph, you probably do like this stuff, so let’s get down to business about Grotesque. From a horror perspective, that first half hour is pretty good (if not typical) stuff; it’s directed with the flair of a made-for-television movie, but the isolated, snowbound setting works well enough. Tornatore occasionally finds some inspired visuals, especially when he’s taking advantage of the fact that Stockwell’s playing a horror director. Naturally, the house is littered with masks and props; there must have been a surplus of Silver Shamrock masks because they make a cameo here. One appears in glorious fashion when one of the female punkers decides to wear one during sex (which of course is the natural thing to do when you’re in the middle of murdering an entire family).
Other familiar faces abound, at least for about 20 minutes at a time. That includes Linda Blair, who literally disappears from the third act despite her top billing; carrying an associate producer credit (which surely was responsible for said top billing), Blair must have only been on set for a day or so (that’s how it plays at least). Her friend is minor scream queen Donna Wilkes, who will always be known as Jackie, the shrill, annoying one that Bruce the Second let get away in Jaws 2. Here, she’s just one of the sleepwalkers who’s just zoned out for most of her screen-time. Tab Hunter was sort of a Hollywood stalwart who shows up here as Blair’s uncle, and Robert Z’Dar even pops up as one of the punkers (again, that’s apparently the technical term). Speaking of them, their leader (Brad Wilson) is brought to life by a preposterous “angry young man” performance that’s reminiscent of a coked-up Billy Idol. Oh, and George “Buck” Flower is inexplicably credited as the film’s pre-production coordinator (sadly, he does not double as an on-screen bum, perhaps for the first time in the history of cinema).
Did I mention something about the possibly inhuman beast roaming around? Well, there is; I seriously had to check my watch around the half hour mark because I was wondering if I was going to actually have to endure an hour of Linda Blair fighting off a bunch of yuppie-hating scumbags. But that’s when the other insane shoe dropped and Grotesque began to gloriously spiral out of control; I’m not going to spoil just how and why there’s a monster living in some hidden quarters located within the family cabin--to do so would be to ruin one of the approximately 9 twists (maybe only a slight exaggeration) the film has to offer. However, rest assured that it’s a wild ride that’ll have you pondering if someone switched the disc in your DVD player. That’s how far gone this movie eventually manages to be, but the end actually manages to be a cute nod for horror fans despite the utter lack of reasoning behind it.
Grotesque is a fairly awful movie that somehow manages to have a nasty mean streak and a cheekiness in the span of its 90 minutes; I’m almost positive its script was culled together from discarded pages of other scripts to form a misshapen Frankenstein’s monster of bad ideas and even poorer execution. Perhaps because it’s so grotesque, it’s never been released on DVD--until now. We can thank Shout Factory, who is releasing it as part of their “Vampires, Mummies, & Monsters” collection along with 3 other films. It seems to be the throwaway title of the bunch, as it receives no special features and an average (at best) presentation. The 4:3 transfer is a notch above VHS in quality and especially lacks detail, but the soundtrack fares much better, as everything’s loud and clear. Oddly enough, this release is part of the Roger Corman Cult Classics series even though the King of the Bs had nothing to do with it. Maybe he’s retroactively claiming crappy movies to go along with the others in his oeuvre. At any rate, Grotesque lives up to its definition: “a very ugly or comically distorted figure.” That’s what Webster says, anyway. Rent it!
