CHILLERAMA (2011) **

Chillerama was riding on the coattails of Grindhouse.  Instead of getting two movies for the price of one at a grindhouse movie theater, it’s four (short) films playing at a from-dusk-till-dawn drive-in.  Unlike Grindhouse, there isn’t any fake movie trailers in between the features.  Instead, we get wraparound sequences involving the staff at the drive-in.  I didn’t mind the teenage drama with a guy flirting with the hot girl at the concession stand, but the stuff with the necrophiliac janitor was a bit much.  

The first movie is “Wadzilla” (**), directed by Adam (The Dark Backward) Rifkin.  A mild-mannered guy (Rifkin) with a low sperm count takes an experimental drug to increase his semen production.  The drug causes his sperm to grow to enormous size, and it’s up to our hero to stop it before it tries to impregnate the Statue of Liberty (porn star Kelly Divine).

I like Rifkin’s stuff as much as the next guy, but sadly, this one is kind of a letdown.  The premise is ideal for something like this, but the whole thing feels rushed.  It would’ve also helped if it was actually funny.  There are some highlights though.  The scenes of the giant sperm wreaking havoc on the city play out kind of like the discarded ending from the Little Shop of Horrors remake, and I did like seeing Eric Roberts showing up in a cameo as a general.  

Next up is Tim (2001 Maniacs) Sullivan’s “I Was a Teenage Werebear” (* ½).  Confused teenager Ricky (Sean Paul Lockhart) spurns the advances of his girlfriend for the new leather-clad tough guy student, Talon (Anton Troy).  During a wrestling match, Talon bites him on the ass, turning him into a werebear.  Now, Ricky must stop Talon and his other werebears before they turn his class into a hot lunch.

This is an odd spoof of juvenile delinquent movies, werewolf films, and beach party musicals.  The musical stuff is the most cringeworthy element as the songs are all pretty lame and the staging is lackluster.  Speaking of staging, the whole thing takes place at a beach for some reason, even the scenes that are supposed to be set inside a school.  I don’t know if they couldn’t afford to film at a real school or what, but the wonky cardboard sets adds to the overall cheap feel to this one.  

The third “movie” is the hilariously titled, “The Diary of Anne Frankenstein” (***).  Directed by Adam (Hatchet) Green, it actually manages to live up to its title.  While hiding in an attic, Anne Frank (Melinda Cohen) learns that her great-grandfather was actually Dr. Frankenstein.  In his diary are the secrets to create a monster out of dead body parts.  The Nazis storm the attic and Hitler (Joel David Moore) kills Anne, steals the book, and creates his own monster (Kane Hodder).

This sequence manages to find the sweet spot between bad taste, over the top gore, and legitimately funny schtick.  Moore steals the movie as Hitler.  While everyone speaks German throughout the film, he talks in a made-up gobbledygook that just SOUNDS German, and the results are often very funny.  (At one point, he screams, “BOBA FETT” while the subtitle says, “KILL!”)  Kane Hodder also has some good moments as the Jewish monster who uses the menorah and a dreidel to kill Nazis.  

The final flick is Joe (Mayhem) Lynch’s “Zom-B-Movie” (**).  It starts out as a movie called “Deathication” about killer shit before the film breaks.  Then, a zombie horde disrupts the showing.  It seems the zombie janitor jacked off into the popcorn butter and turned everyone in the drive-in into zombies.  It’s then up to a small group of friends to try to survive the night.  

Your enjoyment of the final sequence will probably depend on your tolerance for the wall-to-wall gore and zombie effects.  While I got a laugh out of some of this nonsense (like the zombie breastmilk), it quickly descends into tasteless overkill.  (The zombies constantly jerk off and ejaculate blue jizz.)  I wasn’t really a fan of the Day-Glo zombie make-up either, and the constant references to other movies gets annoying after a while. 

Like most anthology horror films, Chillerama is uneven as they come.  The big problem is that it clocks in at nearly two hours, which is just way too long for something like this.  I think it might’ve worked better with two or even three stories.  Either that, or they should’ve just gone all in on The Diary of Anne Frankenstein and turned it into a full-length feature.  I would’ve bought a ticket for it, that’s for sure.