TERROR TOONS

Produced and Directed by Joe Castro
Written by Rudy Balli
Edited by Steven Escobar
Director of Photography - Isaac Garza

Candy - Lizzie Bordon
Cindy - Beverly Lynn
Amy - Kerry Liu
Dr. Carnage - Matty Moo
Max Assassin - Scott Barrows

Imagine the cartoon anarchy of Tex Avery mixed with the blood-drenched horror-stylings of the Godfather or Gore, Herschel Gordon Lewis.

If your mind is racing wild with the possibilities, then you are just the person to enjoy Joe Castro's mondo bizzarro TERROR TOONS, a splat-tacular comic look at the age of modern technology and corporate America's need to cash in on the next pre-teen fad (ie. Barney and Pokemon).

With the price of filmmaking technology at an all-time low, it was inevitable for a movie like TERROR TOONS to come about. It's like a micro-budget take on WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT, only in Castro's version the cartoon character's like to play around with the human character's intestines and brains.

The Devil has a plan to take over the world. He wants DVDs of the new Dr. Carnage and Max Assassin show in the homes of every child in America. The humor of Dr. Carnage and Max Assassin is similar to the Itchie and Scratchy bits on THE SIMPSONS: hack-hack, chop-chop, spurt-spurt. Once inserted into a household DVD player, the duo would pop out of cartoon land and unleach their sense of physical comedy upon the real world.

We know all these because:

a) The Devil tells us so. (The bad guy always reveals his plan. Well, you know what happens then...)
b) That's exactly what happens!

The set up is straight out of Full Moon territory. Teenagers sisters, alone at home while their parents are out of town, get together with some beefcake, and are picked off one by one by Dr. Carnage and Max Assassin.

While talk is cheap, especially in filmmaking, the worst type of action is inaction. The story is marred by long pauses where the slasher-fodder (ie. teenagers) find themselves on the couch talking. This wouldn't have been so bad if the slasher-fodder were talking about something substantial, as opposed to the game of strip-Ouija they play. Some camera movement would have helped as well. The scenes cut the frantic comic pacing down to a snail's crawl.

The other 90% of the movie is so much better than those couch sequences. Almost every cartoon gimmick is pulled from the hat and played up in gore-flinging glee. The eye bulges. The dynamite in the hotdog bun routine. And my personal favorite, the over-sized cutting instruments (scissors, axes, and scalpels).

There's loads of blood and guts, but even the live-action gore is done in such a playful tone that the movie should hit the video shelves without too many edits. Look for this one to hit video shelves in August 2002.

Brain Damage Films

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