The Granny (1995)

Director:

Luca Bercovici

Writers (WGA):

Sam Bernard (story) &
Luca Bercovici (story) ...

Genre:

Comedy | Horror

Tagline:

Being Granny's Favorite Can Be Murder!

Plot:

Granny's family wants her dead so they can collect her insurance. While she is on her death bed, she...

Plot Keywords:

Female To Male Foot In Crotch | Heir | Good Versus Evil | Murder | Castration

Cast

Stella Stevens	...	Granny
Shannon Whirry	...	Kelly
Luca Bercovici	...	Namon Ami
Brant von Hoffman	...	David
Sandy Helberg	...	Albert
Patricia Sturges	...	Andrea
Heather Elizabeth Parkhurst	...	Antoinette
Ryan Bollman	...	Junior
Samantha Hendricks	...	Amy
Joseph Bernard	...	Mr. Sadler
Teresa Ganzel	...	Leanne
Dan Woren	...	Lenny
Kedrick Wolf	...	Dr. Hardy
Tyrus	...	Tyrus
Anthony Hickox	...	Frederick

Also Known As:

The Granny: A Blood Relative (Australia) (poster title)
The Matriarch (UK) (video title)

MPAA:

Rated R for violence and gore, crude sexuality and language.

Runtime:

85 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Colour:

Colour

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

New Zealand:R18 | Australia:R | UK:18 | USA:R

Company:

Tapestry Films

Quotes:

[Antoinette puts her foot in David's crotch under the dinner table, David looks up in surprise]
Antoinette: How's your meat?
David: [chewing food] Um... hard.
Antoinette: Maybe I should tenderize it for you.
Kelly: [unaware] Did I overcook?

Thumbs up from me!

The people who have reviewed THE GRANNY here are obviously NOT horror movie fans, and thus should stick to reviewing films like FREE WILLY, PART 10. Anyway... What an improvement for Luca (GHOULIES, ROCKULA) Bercovici, who wrote, directed and co-stars! THE GRANNY is wonderful, tasteless fun and easily one of the best direct-to-video horror films of the decade.

Stella Stevens is not only the Granny of the title, but the reigning Granny of B-grade direct-to-video flicks. She's terrific chewing the scenery as Anastasia Gargoli, mother to some rather objectionable jerks who (along with their children) are trying to kill her for her inheritance. The only person kind to Granny is her bastard niece Kelly (well played by soft-core queen Shannon Whirry). Before dying, a magical elixir that promises eternal life is injested, and ends up backfiring. Since Kelly is screwed out of an inheritance, Granny returns as a cannibalistic zombie to settle the score.

THE GRANNY is thankfully played out in tongue-in-cheek fashion, so we get a lot of black comedy (such as gags involving incest, decapitation, castration, grave robbing and more). Gore FX are effective and creative, but pretty mediocre. The performances are campy and fun.

On the negative side, the tone of the movie (fluctuating from camp to drama to comedy to horror) may turn some off, and the (open) ending is unnecessary. But in a movie with this much energy and good things going for it, those aspects are quite easy to overlook.