Thirteen years after the "Lawnmower Killer" killed her sister, high school student Mary Graves and obsessed detective Dick Harbinger are on the lookout for the killer to reappear during the annual Halloween Pumpkin Prom.
Joe Don Baker Stella Stevens George Kennedy Julia Duffy Scott McGinnis E. G. Daily Michele Tobin Andrew Dice Clay Anthony James Sonny Carl Davis David Drucker Jeff Altman Victor Brandt Charles Napier Darby Hinton Jacqulin Cole Helen Martin Katina Garner Erin Halligan Wil Albert Michael Lee Gogin Claudia Lonow Tamar Howard Ben Hartigan John Avery Toni Sawyer Lou Felder Al Nalbandian Laura Dashosh Show All…
Wacko – Da wackelt die Bude, 마지막 남은 처녀, 怪人, Wacko: Uma Comédia Maluca
I purchased this a few years ago because I love Greydon Clark movies and Joe Don Baker is the man so I’ve always figured that this would be right up my alley… unfortunately it really wasn’t but I held on to it so I could give it another shot (or justify my $30 purchase, you decide) down the line… and welp, I couldn’t wait for this to end so I could chuck the disc right into the trade-in pile. Bummer
Has a few moments here and there but all my good will for this movie goes to George Kennedy and the pumpkin headed lawnmower killer.
If it wasn't for Vinegar Syndrome, I'd probably would never had seen more of his filmography than Without Warning and Joysticks. But now, I've seen Uninvited and Wacko... and looking very forward to Angels' Brigade.
So this is one of the pre-Scary Movie spoofs that don't get as much credit as they deserve. I throw There's Nothing Out There, Student Bodies and Splatter University in that batch.
So many of the jokes fall flat but I still found it entertaining. Elizabeth Daily and Andrew Dice Clay (his debut) are the stand-outs.
Watched Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray
- Newly scanned & restored in 4k from its 35mm original camera negative
- Brand new commentary track with director Greydon Clark
- "Die Laughing" - an interview with cinematographer Nicholas von Sternberg
- Never before seen outtakes
- Trailer
- Reversible cover artwork
Contains a scene in which Andrew Dice Clay gets a boner so big it knocks over a dinner table, and a running joke where George Kennedy keeps trying to see his daughter naked.
The best of the Greydon Clark/Joe Don Baker trilogy. It's funny maybe 15% of the time, but I choose to look at the glass as 15% full. Just when I thought I'd finally seen every trick in Joe Don's arsenal, along comes his EPIC MUGGING in this movie to make me fall in love with him all over again.
Wacko gone and wacked my dang noggin good I tells ya what. My brain was basically a wack a mole Chucky Cheese game. My brain constantly popping out into reality and just as quick getting smashed by the mallet of nonsensical insanity. Brain pops up...brain gets smashed. Rinse repeat... constant brain smash.
This movie warns you that there's going to be a dream sequence and encourages you to get a refreshment. How friggin on point is that? Obviously I rushed to my fridge and grabbed a beverage and chugged said beverage. Then shortly after a bunch of crazy shite went down and a guy drove a car into the clouds...literally. Christmas Evil style just drove right into the sky he…
"A MOTION PICTURE MADE BY, FOR, AND ABOUT PEOPLE JUST LIKE YOU!"
As far as nostalgic and quirky Halloween themed slasher spoofs go Wacko is at the top of its class. I enjoyed my first viewing last year but watching this in October made the stars align to provide a magically memorable melting of the mind!
The whole premise here is deliciously spooktacular. A pumpkin headed serial killer who rides a giant lawn mower over people to kill them??? Get outta here! And the killer literally wears a legit giant pumpkin as a head. Its a sight to see! Halloween is here again and the pumpkin head killer threatens to ruin the High School Halloween dance!! Oh shit!!!
Scene to…
This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
Who is the lawnmower killer? Is it Mary's father, the creepy gynecologist who keeps spying on his daughters and trying to molest them in their sleep and when he is confronted, insists that he is 'mowing the lawn?' Is it Mary's boyfriend, who makes a lawnmower noise whenever he is sexually aroused, bringing back the traumatic memory of that terrible night when Mary's older sister was murdered by a power lawn mower right in front of her?? Who will win the big football game?? Hitchcock or De Palma High??? Who will take E.G. Daily to the Halloween Pumpkin Prom???? All these questions and more will be answered. But the most important question of all: what exactly am I watching?!?!? Will…
Through the darkness of future past
George Kennedy longs to see
Joe Don Baker chants out between two worlds
"Fire walk with me."
Love Joe Don Baker, but I could’ve easily gone the rest of my life without hearing him say ”creamy statutory thighs”. Also didn’t need to see him in drag getting dommed by a mistress. And his twinkie-crumbed detective sucking face with Dotty from Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure is an image forever scarred on my soul 🤮
But I think I kinda liked this though? I’m not sure. It's real dumb. Riffing on Halloween, Prom Night, and similar slashers with some of the corniest… I guess we’ll call them jokes? But goddamn does this thing ever have such a possessed manic frantic energy. So overwhelming. Lamnmower incest puns, Mama Bates ventriloquist shows, DICK HARBINGER, levitating boobs, and more boners than Andrew Dice…
Vinegar Syndrome's level of curation is on a whole nutha level.
Just when you've got them figured out, they throw a curveball of an early 80's horror-comedy mess that in all honesty should not get more than 3 stars but dammit I'm giving it 4 because it is so ultraWTF.
Like Scary Movie if it was made in 1982, or maybe even Airplane-meets-Pieces, full of recognizable faces like George Kennedy, Elizabeth Daily, and Andrew "No Dice" Clay.
It's all about the Lawnmower Killer terrorizing a high school in your standard slasher mystery formula: everyone is a suspect and only the most inept detective is trying to crack the case. Hilarity Ensues.
So the question to ask this film is this:…
This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
A lawnmower killer on the loose, Harry Palms is the school vice principal (get it, Harry Palms?), George Kennedy likes to peep on his daughters in their bedroom, Julie Duffy as a child saw her sister chopped up with a lawnmower, an elephant talks, Andrew Dice Clay's head turns and he spits out pea soup, Michele Tobin was covered in whip cream and cherries way before Ali Larter did it in "Varsity Blues", Joe Don Baker's always eating with a trashy cig in his mouth while out to find a killer (the twist involving him I guess is supposed to be ironic but was more like a thud), the killer wears a pumpkin on his head but Duffy pretty much…
"I don't know how to tell you this, so I'll have to be blunt. Pam's been murdered. And your other daughter, Mary, she saw the whole thing. She's bound to be screwed up by the terrible images she must carry with her for the rest of her life"
That last sentence is repeated throughout Wacko and I pull a stomach muscle every time I hear it. If you like Naked Gun but wanted to see that formula applied to a slasher movie, this is probably the best example I've seen of it. It can be very deadpan but also very over the top and I don't know, I just love this movie. I know it's not everyone's favorite, but if I want something Halloween themed that packs a lot of laughs-per-minute, this hasn't failed me yet.
Summer of Trash 2024 13/95
13. Watch a movie that Bob McCully loves but most people don't
Wacko is the result of combining a horror movie with elements of satire and parody and completely failing at both. Something about parody movies I just don’t find funny. I found this film horrifically unfunny, but it does sport an excellent cast doing the best they can even when the script lets them down. I would have enjoyed it much more had it been just a regular 80’s slasher flick than a parody.