Heavy Mental

Heavy Mental (2009)

Dir: Mike C. Hartman (Troma)

IMDB Rating: 6.3 out of 10

Well  If "Father's Day" is what I hope for the future of Troma, Then "Heavy Mental" is the exact opposite. Although this film does feel like a Troma film it feels like one of their weaker attempts. Mike C. Hartman who directs what I assume is a local Horror host T.V. show named "Wolfman Mac's Chiller Drive in" had his heart in the right place when making this film , It just does not come off well at all. While watching this flick I can't tell if this is a loving spoof of the Heavy Metal genre or if the guy despises the style of music and he is attempting to tear it apart from the seams. Cheap production, Bad acting and writing along with horrible gore effects which sometimes actually add charm to a low budget slasher/gore flick completely work against this film as it just comes off sad in the end.

             The film opens up with a fake cheesy Metal video from the band Red Reaper. After the video ends we see that the bands lead singer has Eddie Lee Stryker has passed away and we have a short tribute to the artist before the actual story begins to unfold. We then meet Ace Spades son of two gay father's who run a local Guitar shop. It is Ace's birthday and as he prepares to practice with his Band "Satan's Fist" for a battle of the Bands competition he receives Eddie Lee Stryker's famous clear guitar as a gift. While Ace and his band mates celebrate with his father's a duo of female goon's arrive to collect protection money from the shop owners for their boss Miss Delicious. As Ace gets to practicing he feels possessed by the spirit of Stryker and shreds like never before.Elsewhere Delicious and her mob are setting out to collect from all the local businesses and when paying visit to a small club owner she finds the man places to pay with money he receives from holding the local battle of the Bands. This plants the brilliant idea in her head to blow up the building during the show in order to rid Detroit of Metal music and to collect a healthy insurance settlement as well.

At home Ace hears the spirit of Stryker speak to him through the guitar and he requests that Ace help him get revenge on Delicious for framing him for killing his band mates years ago in exchange for awesome guitar skills to win the contest. Ace agrees but does not quite know exactly what he is to do just yet. While Delicious' mob reigns terror on the town collecting money and killing  even normal townsfolk , like a Hot Dog eating contest winner, Ace transforms into a skull headed hulk and springs into action attacking all the goons in sight. After saving a local Porn store "Hot Carl's"  from being robbed Ace is spotted on the news in his new form and his coined a town hero known as the "Guitar Hero".Mean while a Detective seems to believe this beast is responsible for the killings of innocent people in Detroit and begins to investigate , even following Ace's new girlfriend Sara around town.

After Offing several goons a Chicken headed lackey witnesses Ace transform back to his normal state and returns to notify Miss Delicious of his findings. Now with the mob after Ace the fight is brought to him. Ace continues to destroy Delicious' mob as the big show approaches. During the night of the Battle of the Bands Ace in his new form sneaks into the venue and overhears Miss Delicious' plan of planting bombs in the club. Ace manages to defuse the two of the bombs and takes out more goons before the detective comes to his senses and decides to join forces with Ace. Ace goes for the head of the mob while the detective and Sara search for the last remaining bomb. As Ace kills Miss Delicious the Detective manages to defuse the final explosive and just in time for his performance, Ace returns back to his normal form and sets Stryker's soul free. As you would expect his band wins the competition and Metal lives on in the city of Detroit , Michigan.

Well as many of you know , If you frequent this site. I am a fan of "Bad cinema and I like a little cheese in my films for the most part, But I have to draw the line somewhere and I think I found it with this film. When I was doing my research on this film I found that it had a insanely high rating of 6.3 on IMDB, upon further investigation I saw that there was yet to be a review on the site for this film though. This leads me to believe that the film makers either paid the site off or they just had everyone involved personally go to the site and vote highly for this film because their is no way this film would ever score that high. Even with my doubts , I went into this film with some decent expectations . Thinking it would be similar to films like Black Roses or Rock n' Roll Nightmare which were cheesy but had their charm and knowing Troma was behind this I knew it would be filled with cheese but this film was just plain awful from beginning to end. Actually I take that back, When I saw the spoof video at the opening my hopes were high thinking it would be a legitimately funny film and man was I wrong.This film comes off as  just some fans of Troma's newer lesser known stuff like "Pot Zombies" which is referenced in this film decided to get together with no talent and slap a film together using all the things they believe make Troma so legendary but they got it all wrong. I could get passed the cheap gore and bad acting but the horrid one liners and complete infringement of Troma style just makes this film unbearable. I would not even recomend this one to Troma completists as this one belongs in the bin along their other flops like the aforementioned "Pot Zombies" , "Slaughter Party" , and the like. Troma has a habit of just backing anything at times and I feel that is why a majority of Horror fans do not respect the company as much as I do. Troma is hit and miss and I have grown to appreciate that but this is certainly one of their misses. As I said in the opening "Father's Day" is where I feel Troma should be heading and focusing on the upcoming sequel to Toxic Avenger (Toxic Twins: Toxic Avenger 5) and they should be more picky on side projects they attach their name to because films like this are gonna only hurt their already strange reputation.

Gore:5
Nudity:1
Story:2
Characters:2
Fun Factor:2
Overall:2 out of 10