This will contain spoilers, not that it matters really. Its just as brilliant either way.
Normally I start off a review with some back story about the film’s production and/or the filmmaker. I would do this here too, if not for the fact that I can’t find anything online about the filmmaker, Boris Pavlovsky, or the film itself. This is possibly because he might have gone out and tried to remove any trace of the picture, George Lucas Star Wars Holiday Special style, though I’m just speculating. If that was true, I would not be the least bit surprised as if I was involved with Granny, I would probably dedicate my life to making sure nobody knew. All I know about Pavlovsky is that this is his only film. Most likely because he was too ashamed to go back to movies.
The plot of Granny is, pretty much, non-existent. A group of college friends that range from bland to ‘I-hate-you-so-much-I-hope-you-die-painfully’ get together to celebrate graduation and initiate a new member, called Michelle. Then a guy dressed in a bad hag mask and nylon hair comes and kills them all. Wow. You can just feel the originality dripping off the screen.
The acting on the whole is hilariously bad, not helped by some writing so bad I’m thinking there actually wasn’t any writing and the actors were just told to make it up as they went along. The first twenty minutes of this hour long film (yes, its only an hour long) is entirely pointless, as we sit there watching banal conversation between a bunch of idiots with only the promise of their deaths later in the movie. They talk about sex, college, sex, beer, sex, feminism, sex, paranoia, and just to mix it up a bit, sex. It’s like being stuck in a one-sided conversation with someone you really don’t like, yet can’t get out of for fear of being rude.
After the incredibly boring and dull first twenty minutes, the fun really starts. Make sure to stick with it, because once granny herself shows up, it starts to get very entertaining. One of the characters tells them to leave the house for an hour so he can set up a planned skit to ‘show them his paranoia’. Because if my friend said that, I would totally go, yeah! That’s sounds like a GREAT idea! After the hour, they find the one who told them to leave (what, you expect me to remember their names?) has gone to get more beer. They hear someone crying in the basement and Dead Meat #1 goes down to look. It’s then that we meet Granny and Dead Meat #1 meets and axe to the head. The obvious fake dummy with his body and the ketchup blood is where this film quickly transforms from dull mess to awesome mess.
After some more conversation, they go down to see where Dead Meat #1 went and find his axed body. They panic, throw around sensible ideas like calling the police and leaving the house before remembering that the girl who’s main characteristic is that she likes sex (and a lot of it) is still upstairs. Sex Girl goes to the bathroom and is greeted by Granny and stabs her (I counted) 32 times! And yet her blade stays clean the entire way through. After we get a very funny shot of the room covered in red food colouring, Granny teleports out of the room (or I assume she does, she just kind of isn’t there) and the friends find her and one of the asks, is she dead? Yes, because being pretty much eviscerated 100% non-lethal!
I won’t go into every single scene, because there’s one death which is in the list of the most hilaiously bad death sequences of all time. You can just play it over and over and over again and it’s still brilliant. The last thing I want to touch upon is the ending. Basically, Granny kills everyone except New Girl and New Girl shoots Granny with a plastic toy gun spray painted black that I think is supposed to be real as then dies of the least convincing heart attack ever. We then cut to her funeral where, WHAT’S THIS!? All the dead friends are there! It turns out it was a weird initiation ceremony where the one who told them to leave’s brother plays Granny and it’s all a massive practical joke. Why he saw people being killed when New Girl wasn’t even there I don’t know, but allow me to refer you to this video to describe how this ending is. BUT WAIT! Then New Girl drives past in her car! So she isn’t dead! Wait, how? Oh well, roll credits!
Granny is a film that any bad movie lover needs to see. Its bad writing, direction, music, and acting, make this not just one of the worst films ever made, but one of the most entertaining ones too. The dull first twenty minutes hold it back slightly from a full five Nilbogs, but the rest more than makes up for it. You can pick up the DVD of this for very cheap online, and I implore you to do so.
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