They're superheroes from the heads...to their necks.

Shrunken Heads
1994 | Color | 86 Min | 1.37:1 | R | Dolby | Horror | Full Moon Features 

Source: Full Moon Streaming 

Director: Richard Elfman

Writers: Charles Band (original idea), Matthew Bright (screenplay)

Stars: 

Julius Harris

Meg Foster

Aeryk Egan

Leigh-Allyn Baker

Plot: When three N.Y. kids are murdered, the local Hatiian voodoo priest re-animates their shrunken heads to exact revenge. Complications arise between one of the heads and his former girlfriend.

Inspired by their favorite comic book heroes, young Tommy and his pals take it upon themselves to clean up their menacing neighborhood by busting the local street punks. Thank's to one of those big clunking Camcorders. (Just shows how much the iPhone has changed us) But the three boys run into big trouble for all their good intentions in the form of Big Mo played by Meg Foster, the local crime boss and all around bully. Mo wastes no time in wasting the trio of irritating do-gooders.

But Sumatra played by Julius Harris(Super Fly, Darkman), a retired but still practicing voodoo specialist revives the boys with a healthy dose of mumbo-jumbo. With their new power the shrunken trio head out to take on Big Mo and her boys!

What a better way to kick off Halloween season with Elvira hosting Shrunken Heads! What a crazy whacked out over the top fun little flick brought to us by the equally over the top Richard Elfman. Yes, that's right the founder of the New Wave 90's band Oingo-Boingo and brother of Danny. Shrunken Heads was Charles Band's first big theatrical movie and it deliveries on a big budget of $800,000.  The special effects involve intricate, use of motion control, digital effects and Bands signature puppetry. The back lot looks pretty familiar as well, but I can not put a finger on it. 

Elvira does a fantastic job hosting the movie, it was a much different take over her past years. Like the scene above when Ebbe makes a guest appearance. It comes in the form of a quick pop in-joke during the asthma scene. Her jokes on par and downright funny at times. I was differently smiling throughout the movie.

The cast works well together with a nice blend of seasoned veterans to the new young players. For those of you that have kids and have spent the past few years watching the Disney Channels Good Luck Charlie will get a kick out of Leigh-Allyn Baker playing Mo's ditzy sidekick. She plays the charter very well and I must say is kind of smoking at times. 

Big Mo is played by Meg Foster and she has cited Big Moe as one of her favorite characters she has ever played. I'm not so sure I agree with her as a transgender gangster. At times I felt it was a little pushed. It was almost like she was the main name for the movie and she really did not want to be there. The other odd thing has to be how she fell sick from the cigar yet I do not really remember her smoking. But that is just me. 

The special effect's are not to bad in this movie. The look and feel never take your mind away from the story. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say this movie feels like a Tim Burton style of fun and campy. The use of color the silly jokes in the background that deliver some joyously fun visual's that brought out the kid in me.

The soundtrack is also a thing of beauty from it's Jazzing cajun style to the Oingo-Bongo hit No One Lives Forever. You get the true feel from Danny Elfman and Richard Band has they play with your emotions through their sound that is truly is amazing. Again you get that feeling of Beetle Juice and Batman mixed in. 

I really only have two gripes with this movie, one being the over the top hard to follow at times dialogue. Not sure it was necessary to fill in the gaps with talking heads (Ha ha yeah I went there). My other gripe has to be its R rating if you take out the F bomb's you have yourself a PG or PG-13 movie that would have hit is targeted audience. I wonder who was shooting for the R, Band or Paramount? In fact, I would let my kids watch this now if it was not for the dirty langue. The gore if very lite and kids just might get a kick out of the voodoo magic from Mr. Sumtra making the kids come back to life. This movie would have been on late night TV every Halloween if it was marketed differently. One more small thing that bum's me out this was shown on Svengoolie back in 1984! Oh my, would I love to have seen that. But for now we have Elvira and William Shatner hosting on Full Moon Streamings site. 

I strongly urge you to check out Shrunken Heads this Halloween season, with an underlying tale of Black Magic and Voodoo sprinkled with Elvira's assets your bound to enjoy this movie! 

4 Bloody Brains!

Don't forget to check out the other Bloggers during the Count Down to Halloween!