Rabid Grannies

Rabid Grannies (1989)
Dir: Emmanuel Keruya

As a child growing up during the VHS boom of the 80's , Video rental stores were flooded with Horror films of all kinds . This of course made my sick little heart happy as I was a gore hound for day one, Trying to convince my mother to allow me to rent the most disturbing films I could dig up, But with that said there were always a few certain films that I would not watch because the covers scarred me for some reason and now looking back at what covers frightened me I have to laugh because they were all goofy as hell. Some of the films on that list were Redneck Zombies, Bloodsuckers from outer space and this little turd here Rabid Grannies. I don't know what it was about these films covers that scarred me so much they just simply did. Now years later I have conquered all the films on that list with the exception of Rabid Grannies until now since the film is just hard to track down. I gotta say although this film is not awful it is just not that good at all.

        The film focuses on the Remington Family as they all prepare to return to their families mansion to celebrate the sisters Elizabeth and Victoria as they turn the ripe old age of 92. The entire family consist of dirt bags of all walks of life all racing to get their inheritance. We get brief introductions to the cast as they make their way to the house, and unfortunately it was kinda hard for me to follow who is exactly who in the family but their is a young spoiled man Roger who is a slimy pervert, A corrupt priest Father Percival, Erika and her secret lesbian lover, Bertha who is the black sheep, A fat guy and his trophy wife and another fat guy John and his trophy wife Helen and their two children and Harvey a weapons dealer. So with that out of the way the family arrives and they prepare for dinner as the house workers are hard at task preparing the dishes for the feast. While the family sits down to play nice for the elderly sisters at the dinner table a mysterious woman arrives at the gates. Alice one of the help goes to greet the strange woman who then gives Alice a small box to present to the sisters for their birthday. As the family sits and watches the sisters open their gifts they finally come to the mystery box which seems to have been sent from a disowned brother whom ran a satanic cult. Once the box is opened it seems to leak some smoke that possesses the two celebrating sisters and they instantly begin to transform which leads to one of the old ladies eating Erika right at the dinner table in front of everyone.

The family obviously shaken up by this turn of events scatters throughout the house to hide in several rooms until they can figure out what exactly is happening.Not too much special or out of the ordinary happens here as the family is slowly picked off one by one in promising gross fashion that just does not deliver the goods.
Roger and Erika's lesbian lover who bares a striking resemblance to Alexis Texas decide to make a run for it as they have already had an affair within minutes of arriving at the house and they make it to a car where one of the Grannies catches up with them. Killing Roger and forcing the woman to sing happy birthday before releasing her and then running her down with the car.While back in the house some of the family tries to get the priest to perform a exorcism, But he is too cowardly to do so.

Helen quickly realizes that her daughter Susie is still out in the house since she was in the restroom while the attack happened so she goes out looking for her child. She finds the child in the arms of one of the grannies when Helen's son then appears to be possessed and bites his mother fingers off. Eventually Helen's husband and the rest of the family go looking for escape routes and are all caught by the crazed grannies.Until finally Bertha finds that the box must be destroyed in order to save themselves from the demons taking over the house. I really cannot go into further detail with this film as not much happens ,just running, someone caught, more running and whining and repeat. there is a few funny bits of dialog thrown about but not enough to save this films from being complete trash.

Eventually the box is destroyed and the grannies return to normal, Police arrive on the scene and the few survivors are shown when Helen has gone mad her son is left with the lesbian lover and Bertha is driving off in a cab when she appears to be possessed now and the credits roll as she apparently kills the cabbie.

This film could have been so much better in my opinion, There a very few times where I think adding gore to the scenes would benefit the film greatly and this is one of the cases. If the gore level was amped up this could have been a classic along the lines of Dead Alive but since most if not all the gore is suggested and not shown it drags this film down to a stall. I must say that I had high hopes for this film as the trailer suggests it is a gorefest splatstick comedy well, sadly it falls flat on that account.If you enjoy British humor you may get a kick out of this film but that was just not enough for me personally and I felt utterly let down. Like I said this film had allot of promise that it just could not live up to in the long run.
Gore:5
Nudity:2
Story:5
Characters:5
Overall:4.5 out of 10