The Banana Splits Movie

Nine year old Harley is celebrating his birthday. He's going to a taping of the Banana Splits TV show with his mom, stepdad, older brother and friend Zoe. The Banana Splits are actually robots under their costumes. Then, during the course of the show, they find out they're going to be canceled. They malfunction, go crazy and start attacking and killing people. Can Harley and his family escape?

It's basically a one-joke film. The premise is great but they don't let totally loose with it. It was never funny or scary enough to totally succeed. There's plenty of graphic gore and they (thankfully) use practical effects. With one exception the acting is good even by the kids. Only Steve Lund disappoints as the stepdad. He has this I-don't-want-to-be-here look on his face throughout And yes--there's room for a sequel. So not a total washout but no great movie either.

Apart for the first couple of minutes it lost all of the personality of the original show, I could have been watching any modern low budget badly made slasher movie. So why contemporary? I guess to draw in a younger audience, but 1970's setting would have been so much more fitting, in keeping with the original vibe while paying homage to all those 70's slasher movies. Wasted opportunity.

Who remembers the Banana Splits? Tra-la-la la-lalala-la...That song was childhood for a great deal of us. Kudos, then, to the producers turning an admittedly lame parody of The Monkees (and probably an early progenitor for The Furries) into something kind of fresh, kind of lame, kind of fun and very gory, forty years after the show ended.

In this alternate reality where the show never ended, Harley and his family are attending a taping of The Banana Splits for his birthday. His older brother is a surly burnout, his father a neglectful adulterer and his mum a timid flake. With him is a school friend, not a real friend, Zoe, who's there because her mum forced her. A happy family this is not. Thankfully, along with a variety of victims, harley and his family are going to get the chance to bond and repair their relationships, if only they don't get murdered by the psychotic animatronics.

Overall, the cast is not capable of blending the comedy with the surreal horror of Drooper, Snorky, Bingo and Fleegel going on a murder rampage. Maria Nash, playing Zoe, fares the best as the sardonic and confident co-pilot through a world she left behind years ago. Sara Canning, as the long-suffering show producer manages to elicit some sympathy when she's dragged into the mayhem. Naledi Majoli as an audience manager doing her best is easy to like and cheer for. Dana Kind, as the fretful mum turned bad ass does enough to be believable, but the rest of the cast all seem to be in different productions.

Shout out to the special effects crew who appear to do most of it without resorting to CGI. The Banana Splits enjoy a spot of violent murder and the gleeful squirms as they treat spines like a lock to a key, or heads like giant buttons to be mashed will elicit cheers and groans of disgust from the audience. The set details, as well, as we move from each of the Splits' iconic sets adds a great bit of variety to the warehouse lot. It all climaxes wonderfully in a private showing of the Splits' final show ever, complete with violent murder and goofy gags.

This is a brave attempt at bringing something long forgotten and now completely unknown to a new generation. While it's not entirely successful (the sound design doesn't sync with either the camp lameness or the brutal horror and the editing struggles to be smooth, owing in part to using animatronics), it does a decent job of reimagining a childhood favourite for a new audience. That in itself is comendable. One for gore hounds and those on nostalgia trips!

Like many I suppose, I was drawn to the novelty factor having the iconic Banana Splits made into a modern horror film. I was all for the concept and the basic premise is quite a good one. However the film takes itself far too seriously for it to actually work properly.

It's a ridiculous setup so there should be some humour involved. It's all delivered with such a straight face that after a while it becomes an ordinary, if not bland, slasher film.

The first execution is quite fun but after that these bananas are slipping on their own dropped peels. A shame but ultimately it's pretty dull.

I've always felt that there was something deeply unsettling about The Banana Splits (especially that moose head); clearly I was not alone in thinking this, for The Banana Splits Movie uses the once-popular '70s kids TV show as the basis for a gory horror in which furries Fleegle, Bingo, Drooper and Snorky run amok, killing those present at a recording of the programme (weirdly, the moose head is nowhere to be seen).

Trapped in a studio soundstage, young Banana Splits fan Harley (Finlay Wojtak-Hissong) and his family are hunted by the furry TV stars, who are revealed to be robots that have gone haywire upon cancellation of the long-running show. This premise looks set to be a whole load of demented fun, especially for those familiar with the source material, but Danishka Esterhazy's stilted direction, a general air of cheapness (the Splits' studio set is poverty stricken), and the terrible script all add up to a big dose of mediocrity.

The gory death scenes are the best thing about the film, and include a bisection (with guts!), a severed head, a scalded face, a hammer to the head, and a guy having his arms and legs torn off. But as impressive as most of the bloody mayhem is, one can't help but feel disappointment at the lifelessness of the whole thing, the lack of scares, and the fact that Esterhazy didn't go even further with the lunacy and gruesomeness. The opportunity to go large with the craziness was definitely there and should have been seized with both hands.