It’s no picnic being a connoisseur of what others often consider to be “trash films”, but most of the time the reward of unearthing these treasures far outweighs the efforts involved. For example, the movie EVIL TOONS is a very important movie, as far as I’m concerned. So important, in fact, that I have owned it in multiple formats.
The story behind EVIL TOONS is almost as amusing and compelling as the movie
itself. Director, Fred Olen Ray, tells a tale of going to see ‘Who
Framed Roger Rabbit’ when it first came out and musing to himself, “I’ll
bet people would pay money to see a cartoon monster rip a girl’s clothes
off.” He came up with the idea to do a movie, utilizing that Friday the
13th style of not showing the killer until the big payoff, limiting the
actual amount of animation that he would have to include. He pitched
the idea to Roger Corman who thought the idea was too elaborate and
didn’t believe it could be done for the amount of money Fred was asking
for. Fred decided to produce the movie independently and the results are
satisfyingly effective and fun.
In my youth, I recorded this movie off of Showtime After Hours but missed the first ten minutes of it. Years later, when our local Premiere Video closed, I purchased a used VHS copy. Unfortunately, part of that tape was skewed making a portion of the film unwatchable; the best part, of course. About ten years ago, I finally purchased the movie on dvd directly from Retromedia. EVIL TOONS is a beautiful jewel that was worth the journey to finally include in my collection. It stars David Carradine, Dick Miller, and Monique Gabrielle. It’s a spoof of haunted house movies in which a group of young girls, hired to clean on old mansion over the weekend, are menaced by a spirit. In this case, the spirit is a cartoon monster that has been freed from an ancient book, bound in human skin. EVIL TOONS is a horror/comedy that came out in the early 90’s.
There are three directors from this era whose praises I sing repeatedly because they were true masters of this type of horror-comedy (some call them “bimbo comedies); Fred Olen Ray, Jim Wynorski, and Dave DeCoteau. EVIL TOONS is as fine an example you’re going to find of b-movie perfection. It’s shot fast and cheap, features beautiful girls with big hair, a great gimmick, and great cameos. Believe it or not, Laugh-In star Artie Johnson plays a wonderfully creepy neighbor in this. Chuck Cirino provides a great score that also strikes that perfect tone between horror and whimsy, effectively letting you know this film is self-aware and tongue-in-cheek. In fact, at one point in the movie, one of the actresses asks, “Why do these things always have to start with the beautiful young co-eds going into the basement.
They don’t make these types of films any more so I tend to hold tight to the ones that exist. Monique Gabrielle is a very sexy actress who was a staple of many of these movies and she is GREAT in this. If you’re only familiar with mainstream movies, you would maybe recognize her from Tom Hank’s Bachelor Party, but she was in numerous fine b-movies of the era; Not of This Earth, Deathstalker 2, Return of Swamp Thing, etc. In EVIL TOONS, she gets to play the wide-eyed, nerdy, good girl and really shows off her comedic chops. She’s quite funny. I don’t know what kind of luck you’ll have trying to track down a copy of EVIL TOONS, but it’s worth the effort. The animation is minimal but effective and movie is a ton of fun, albeit cheesy. One of my early-90’s favorites. I am planning on squeezing this in for one more viewing before Halloween. -Scotch
