Bad Karma (1991 Video) User Reviews

Wild, man. Wild.

[BandSAboutMovies · 5/10 · 16 January 2023]

Before Alex Chandon made Cradle of Fear, he made this and wow, I love every bit of this grimy movie way better than that. It starts with a barbecue party being destroyed by shape-shifting Hare Krishnas who can become monstrous beings that feel like they belong up on the stage with Gwar but here they are destroying the suburbs.

Those monsters have just two days to worship their god Kalimah - the Kalimas are the basic beliefs of Muslims all around the world, so don't come here for actual religious class - but they run into a biker gang given to giving chainsaw enemas - I mean, the same guy made Chainsaw Scumfuck - as well as a gang of BDSM enthusiasts and even some rednecks complete with a banjo player.

F bombs, British punk energy, monsters that look like they could parade about your town for Halloween, an up-close castration via garden shears, a Death Wish 3-looking gang, Frisbee-fu, a pole right to the face, bad acting and at least one part that had to be shot in a hotel room and I bet they ran out and didn't use one of their own credit cards to pay for the damage to the room.

It's cheap, messy and will take up about 1/6th the time that that new Avatar will waste and it cost a fraction of that movie's budget that I am in no way good enough at math to comprehend. Most of the money on this was spent on FX and the rest on beer. As it should be.

Cheap, cheerful, home-made splatter fest

[cosworth · 7/10 · 21 March 2000]

This has to be one of the best home made horror films I have seen. It has a miniscule budget, no acting talent whatsoever but has some really unique and unusual ideas. It appears to be the film-makers friends and family who take part in the film and have a good laugh along the way.

The plot revolves around some Hari Krishna aliens who arrive at the door of a party and subsequently morph (in the tackiest way possible) into hideous ghouls. We also meet a gang of redneck alien killers who only increase the amount of spilled blood and guts immensely.

What made this film work for me was the enthusiasm that everyone appeared to have and the results that were achieved on such a miniscule budget. The FX are incredibly tacky and plasticy but can be quite ingenious given the limitations the folk involved must have had.

You really have to see this film to appreciate it as it has to be seen to be believed.

I think I was in it!

[wjcorbett · 10/10 · 24 June 2006]

At a recent party many of the cast were reunited for the first time since making the movie, older and wiser you may think, but still as dangerous as ever. It is unfortunate that when the true carnage takes place and the blood flows the cameras weren't rolling. Someone asked me if there were any plans to remake Bad Karma fifteen years on with the same cast using the same locations, this suggestion so incensed director Alice Chandon that he threw himself headfirst on to a table of glasses, causing a severe gash to his head. After an impromptu photo session to capture the bloody carnage he had created in the small kitchen, Ben Bethel accompanied the gashed and bloodied infant terrible to the hospital where he was given six stitches. So I think that's a yes then.