CHILLERAMA

Billed as "The Ultimate Midnight Movie",  Chillerama is a sophomoric, stupid, sleazy, stunningly bad movie that somehow manages to be endearing and charming.  Imagine a 13 year old kid telling fart and dick jokes, but doing it with such enthusiasm and chutzpah he actually makes you laugh...yeah, it's kind of like that.


Clearly the bastard-cinematic-love-child of John Waters, Herschell Gordon Lewis and Roger Corman, Chillerama smacks you in the face, makes you grimace, makes you laugh, makes you sick to your stomach, and then reminds you how much fun bad movies can really be.


Directors, Adam Rifkin, Tim Sullivan, Adam Green and Joe Lynch have gleefully served up a smorgasbord of gory goofiness by setting their story at a drive-in theater's final night where several films from the private collection of the doomed drive in's owner are to be featured.  Unbeknownst to the theater's management  and patrons, a zombie plague is slowly spreading via some tainted popcorn.  But don't worry, that subplot will be resolved by film's end.

The movies being shown are homages/bastardizations of classic horror films from years past.  Wadzilla tells the tale of a monolithic sperm attacking Manhattan ; I Was a Teenage Werebear is a gay themed rip on beach party / teen monster flicks (with a not so subtle nod to Twilight) complete with musical numbers;  The Diary of Anne Frankenstein (which is probably Chillerama's best skit) is a hybrid of two classic films -that it is told entirely in German with subtitles, and that the actor playing Adolph Hitler (Joel Moore) speaks gibberish with a Germanic accent adds just the right touch of surreality to the proceedings.  Finally, Zom-B-Movie turns out to the be the thread that is tying this whole thing together...but sit tight, becuase...well, you'll see why.

Peppered with cameos throughout (Lin Shaye, Eric Roberts and Kane Hodder, to name a few), Chillerama's repulsive oeuvre are all technically witty (Wadzilla is shot in over-saturated colors like a late 60's low budget film might have been;   I Was a Teenage Werebear has a crisp, sunny look to it reminiscent of the Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello beach movies; The Diary of Anne Frankenstein is not only shot in black and white it actually sounds like a film from the 1930's - you'll have to trust me on this one, whoever did the sound mixing on that one was a genius) and decidely high camp.  If you're looking for serious scares, look elsewhere.


Finally then, Chillerama is sure to offend many:  Bare breasts abound, dick shots appear,  body parts are lopped off, zombies fuck people to death, gallons of semen drench people...and did I mention the mini movie that (thankfully) we only get a  brief glimpse of, the one called Deathacation ? Probably not, as that brief, but unforgettable section, made me wretch (you'll see why).   The thing to surviving a viewing of this obscene epic is a sense of humor and (possibly) a barf bag...also it couldn't hurt to be drunk as well.