The Granny

This dark comedy features a spirited performance by Stella Stevens as "Granny". The actors have great makeup, and there is rarely a dull moment. Granny on her deathbed is chosen to get a second chance at life and immortality. Unfortunately the carefully explained three step process gets derailed by a cat, and Granny comes back from the dead seeking revenge on her jackal-like family. There are a few similarities between "The Granny" and "Ed and His Dead Mother", which precedes this film by two years. A couple low budget effects slightly detract, like in the fur closet when hand puppet minks attack, but overall the movie succeeds as entertainment. Shannon Whirry and Heather Elizabeth Parkhurst showing some skin doesn't hurt either. - MERK

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.

This is the worst movie I have ever seen, but it made me laugh more than most of the hit comedies coming out of hollywood these days. In fact, I've rented it more than once to share with my lucky friends. You just don't know what you are missing if you haven't seen The Granny!

This is one of those cheap horror flicks that was made strictly for video and you just can't take a film like this seriously so either skip it altogether or just have fun watching it. Story has a granny (Stella Stevens) who's family comes for a visit but they really try to knock her off for her inheritance. A strange man named Namon Ami (Luca Bercovici) comes by and gives her a potion that will give her eternal life but she can't allow it to be subjected to sunlight or else! Well, or else happens and when granny finally drinks it she later turns into a demon and she starts killing everyone in her family. The film is bloody and gory but its not the type of gore thats realistic so it remains on a lightweight level which helps the viewer. Of course in this type of exploitation there is nudity and Shannon Whirry and Heather Elizabeth Parkhurst are eye popping beautiful! No reason to really dislike this film because since it doesn't take itself seriously and the humor is tongue in cheek why would a viewer pick this apart? If you like these low budget horror films this one has some genuinely funny moments so just sit back and have fun!

although I will have to admit that "The Granny" was one of the worst films that I have ever seen, I always like to find something positive to say about most things. Unfortunately, there's not much I can say about this movie that would be considered positive. It was cheesy, to say the least. The dialogue was non-existent (I actually think the movie would have been better as a silent flick). The plot was so thin, it was like watching a really bad mentos commercial on acid. Of course, there is one positive thing I can say about the film. Although most of the cast of the film should give up acting (if they can even call what they did in that film acting), there were two actors that made the film bearable. Not surprisingly, it was the two youngest actors of the film. Samantha Hendricks played her part well, since all she had to do was be herself; a little girl in a freaky situation. Ryan Bollman, while a little overly dramatic in his role, shows true acting talent. These two actors would do best to hold out for more decent parts, and not waste their talent on such low-grade "film making". "The Granny" belongs in the waste basket, but save these two actors. I hate seeing talent go to waste.