Hideous!

I cannot believe I'm admitting this, but I actually kind of enjoyed this dumb thing.

"Hideous!" from director Charles Band and Full Moon, is still a bad movie. But we ARE talking about Charles Band and Full Moon, so for me to find anything positive is unlikely. But at least there was the attempt at humor, which I did chuckle at a few times. And the acting-incredibly-wasn't that bad...for a Full Moon pic. The gloppy, cheap creatures were more funny than freaky. But there seemed to actually be some...oh I don't know...EFFORT involved in this one. Maybe I felt nostalgic for Stuart Gordon, hearing the familiar synthesizer tones of Charles's brother Richard Band throughout. Regardless, it's not near as bad as expected, and that's really saying something.

Ok, with a title like HIDEOUS! you know right off-the-bat that the

filmmakers weren't out to win any Oscars with this offering.

Surprisingly though, what director Charles Band and his co-horts

at Full Moon Pictures do accomplish is a much better B-movie

than one might expect.



The plot is simple yet completely deranged: a "biological oddities

broker", Belinda Yost (Tracy May), and her two, wealthy, high-profile

collector clients, Napolean Lazar (Mel Johnson Jr.) and Dr. Lorca

(Michael Citriniti), square off against one another over a deformed

specimen found at a local sewer filtration plant. One has his half- naked, gorilla-mask wearing assistant Sheila (Jaqueline Lovell)

steal it while the other hires a P.I., Det. Kantor (Gerard O' Donnell)

to track it down. Everyone winds up in a strange, Transylvanian

castlesque mansion fighting one another until, lo-and-behold,

monsters come to life and all hell breaks loose!



Granted the story isn't great, or barely even good, but the film does

manage to shine in a few areas. The cinematography, despite

what is obviously constructed on a reduced budget, is top-notch.

The film is also well-directed, given the poor material with which it

contends. Well paced and shot. And some of the portrayals and

acting/actors are much better than what one might encounter in

similar features and situations; on one end, fine performances are

given by Lovell (who is very easy on the eyes, I might add), May and

O'Donnell (O'Donnell should be making "real" pictures), but then

we have to contend with over-indulgent, ham from Citriniti,

Johnson Jr. and Rhonda Griffin. It comes out even I suppose.



But the most disappointing aspect of HIDEOUS! by far has to be

the creature effects. They are just plain awful. The deformed

monstrosities look more like skinned Muppets, yet with 50 times

less articulation. They can barely move, mutter incessantly, run

around oozing goo and bring the possibilities of the picture down

quite considerably. And the "sex-scene" is too unbelievably stupid

to describe, but is a must-see! Yes, HIDEOUS! is meant to have a

comic undertone for certain, but chances are the viewer won't be

laughing "with" the makers of this ugly nugget.



5/10. This all could have been avoided if they'd used

Tupperware...

Here is the thing. You have to enjoy cheesy horror movies. To be delighted by the bizarre also helps. Hideous! is a weird movie involving collectable biological oddities preserved (mostly) in formaldehyde, a girl band in a cage rocking out, and a mutant born of noxious waste hell-bent on getting revenge or eating people or something. A quirky movie that entertained me to no end just by it's amusing oddness. The topless bandit didn't hurt either. If you like Full Moon Pictures, you will probably like this one. If the Puppet Master or Subspecies movies didn't do anything for you, then you should probably skip it. But, if you are ready to take a leap of faith and/or have a backup video at the ready, get a copy and set back on the couch for a bizarre evening.

One of the worst movie made in '90.

A weird plot, a series of absurd characters too stupid or too amoral to be realistic.

The freaks are more complex of the human and more smart too.

There is almost nothing that can be saved from it.

HIDEOUS! is another classic from the heyday of Director Charles Band's FULL MOON productions. It has all the right ingredients, including an opening that features two men skimming a huge raw sewage vat for "artifacts"! The fiendish Dr. Lorca (Michael Citriniti) is a collector of such "treasures", and will pay any price to procure them from the sludge. What are these precious finds? Why, freakish mutant fetuses of course.

Trouble breaks out when Lorca's rivals show up at his castle, along with the FBI. Horrible fun ensues.

BEST SCENE IN THE MOVIE: Lorca's faithful assistant, Sheila (Jacqueline Lovell) topless, in leather shorts! Wearing a go-rilla mask! With a gun! In the snow! My friends, this is why god created cinema!...