This bizarre, hilariously inept offering must be seen to be believed. In a film as rife with gaffes and outright incomprehensibility as this one, it's probably pointless to articulate the unintentional comedic gold on display here. But it might be fun, so let's give it a shot.
For starters, this whole outing is so clumsily constructed that it seems impossible to imagine that creator Doris Wishman had ever even SEEN a movie before, let alone made one. The entire film is comprised of a series of choppily edited scenes that rarely follow any sort of logical sequence and are augmented by dubbed-in dialogue that doesn't match the moving of the actor's mouths. In keeping with the disjointed arrangement of the film, there are times when two distinctly different performers' voices are used for a character, sometimes within the same scene.
The majority of the plotting comes courtesy of a voice-over narration that blessedly spares the actors the trouble of having to actually talk to each other very often, but even this audio exposition seems to have been edited with the hatchet on the DVD cover. At times, the narrator's monologues cut off or start up in the middle of a sentence when the film leaps to the next scene, and the oration is so poorly written that even though the voice-over is describing exactly what we're seeing on the screen, it's still often completely impossible to understand any of it.
The almost silent-film sensibility is reinforced by the constant presence of a background score, the majority of which is '80s grocery store music. Like the video, the audio score jumps around with reckless abandon, sometimes in the middle of a scene, and there are times when you can actually hear the source record skipping. The soundtrack is used without regard for the unfolding images, so we often witness brutal (albeit extremely silly) acts of carnage accompanied by music that wouldn't be out of place in the elevator at a dentist's office.
The killings in the film are plentiful and loaded with gore, but the effects are staged with a sophomoric touch that matches the rest of the movie, so these scenes end up being the most humorous bits. Best of all, the film-makers used a real hatchet for several of the murder scenes, so we have the privilege of witnessing the deeds of a thoughtful killer who takes special care to only gingerly tap their victims with the edge of the blade.
The story, such as it is, revolves around a young woman named Vicki Kent who is released from a mental institution after murdering two neighborhood boys (I think) for no apparent reason. It's actually hard to tell who she killed because this part of her back story is nestled between vignettes of other homicides that are ostensibly committed by members of her extended family upon other members of her extended family, such as the quick introduction of another young Kent woman who murders her sister in the bathtub before inconveniently slipping and impaling herself onto her own axe. There's also a brief mention of a Kent aunt who walks around in her garden once a day with her ample breasts hanging out of her blouse, a habit that apparently irks her husband enough for him to hire a man to kill her, which he eventually confesses to before hanging himself. This brings us to about the three-minute mark of the film.
Upon Vicki's release, her sister and brother (who is played by two different actors within the course of about 30 seconds) start scheming to drive her insane so she'll be committed again. The first step of their nefarious plan is to lure her into a dark bathroom, where they fondle her breasts and smear blood all over her, which vanishes by the time a jump cut finds her fleeing into her bedroom. Later touches of brilliance include the brother dressing up like a zombie and chasing Vicki through the woods.
Vicki also has a beau of sorts, her beloved Frankie, who, in addition to shagging her sister, also has another girlfriend with whom he shares a hysterical semi-soft-core make-out scene in which the couple's awkward smooches make them look like they absolutely despise kissing each other. On that note, another definite absurdist highlight is our heroine's bizarre erotic hallucination later in the film (ably described by the narrator: "Suddenly Vicki felt like someone was making love to her in bright flashing colors"), where repeated shots show the lovers' bodies entwined in a way that would make any sort of sexual congress uncomfortable, if not impossible, while super-imposed images of crashing waves and psychedelic lights mingle with their naughty parts.
Frankie's demise is notable because of the way he screams with terror when a cat jumps out at him during the obligatory "is someone there?" build-up, yet barely reacts while he's being hacked to death. In fact, several of the hapless victims in the film look downright bored while they're being killed, which is pretty fitting because we do too.
I could go on, but space is a factor. Suffice to say that the rest of the film is as delightfully absurd as you can possibly imagine. Frame by frame, ANTD is a glorious example of awful, unwatchable cinema at its finest. If you're a disciple of the "so bad it's great" school of film fandom, you absolutely have to see this, because what we're dealing with here is "so bad it's the most amazing thing you'll ever see". All others should not only avoid this film, you should probably burn your computer after reading this.
For starters, this whole outing is so clumsily constructed that it seems impossible to imagine that creator Doris Wishman had ever even SEEN a movie before, let alone made one. The entire film is comprised of a series of choppily edited scenes that rarely follow any sort of logical sequence and are augmented by dubbed-in dialogue that doesn't match the moving of the actor's mouths. In keeping with the disjointed arrangement of the film, there are times when two distinctly different performers' voices are used for a character, sometimes within the same scene.
The majority of the plotting comes courtesy of a voice-over narration that blessedly spares the actors the trouble of having to actually talk to each other very often, but even this audio exposition seems to have been edited with the hatchet on the DVD cover. At times, the narrator's monologues cut off or start up in the middle of a sentence when the film leaps to the next scene, and the oration is so poorly written that even though the voice-over is describing exactly what we're seeing on the screen, it's still often completely impossible to understand any of it.
The almost silent-film sensibility is reinforced by the constant presence of a background score, the majority of which is '80s grocery store music. Like the video, the audio score jumps around with reckless abandon, sometimes in the middle of a scene, and there are times when you can actually hear the source record skipping. The soundtrack is used without regard for the unfolding images, so we often witness brutal (albeit extremely silly) acts of carnage accompanied by music that wouldn't be out of place in the elevator at a dentist's office.
The killings in the film are plentiful and loaded with gore, but the effects are staged with a sophomoric touch that matches the rest of the movie, so these scenes end up being the most humorous bits. Best of all, the film-makers used a real hatchet for several of the murder scenes, so we have the privilege of witnessing the deeds of a thoughtful killer who takes special care to only gingerly tap their victims with the edge of the blade.
The story, such as it is, revolves around a young woman named Vicki Kent who is released from a mental institution after murdering two neighborhood boys (I think) for no apparent reason. It's actually hard to tell who she killed because this part of her back story is nestled between vignettes of other homicides that are ostensibly committed by members of her extended family upon other members of her extended family, such as the quick introduction of another young Kent woman who murders her sister in the bathtub before inconveniently slipping and impaling herself onto her own axe. There's also a brief mention of a Kent aunt who walks around in her garden once a day with her ample breasts hanging out of her blouse, a habit that apparently irks her husband enough for him to hire a man to kill her, which he eventually confesses to before hanging himself. This brings us to about the three-minute mark of the film.
Upon Vicki's release, her sister and brother (who is played by two different actors within the course of about 30 seconds) start scheming to drive her insane so she'll be committed again. The first step of their nefarious plan is to lure her into a dark bathroom, where they fondle her breasts and smear blood all over her, which vanishes by the time a jump cut finds her fleeing into her bedroom. Later touches of brilliance include the brother dressing up like a zombie and chasing Vicki through the woods.
Vicki also has a beau of sorts, her beloved Frankie, who, in addition to shagging her sister, also has another girlfriend with whom he shares a hysterical semi-soft-core make-out scene in which the couple's awkward smooches make them look like they absolutely despise kissing each other. On that note, another definite absurdist highlight is our heroine's bizarre erotic hallucination later in the film (ably described by the narrator: "Suddenly Vicki felt like someone was making love to her in bright flashing colors"), where repeated shots show the lovers' bodies entwined in a way that would make any sort of sexual congress uncomfortable, if not impossible, while super-imposed images of crashing waves and psychedelic lights mingle with their naughty parts.
Frankie's demise is notable because of the way he screams with terror when a cat jumps out at him during the obligatory "is someone there?" build-up, yet barely reacts while he's being hacked to death. In fact, several of the hapless victims in the film look downright bored while they're being killed, which is pretty fitting because we do too.
I could go on, but space is a factor. Suffice to say that the rest of the film is as delightfully absurd as you can possibly imagine. Frame by frame, ANTD is a glorious example of awful, unwatchable cinema at its finest. If you're a disciple of the "so bad it's great" school of film fandom, you absolutely have to see this, because what we're dealing with here is "so bad it's the most amazing thing you'll ever see". All others should not only avoid this film, you should probably burn your computer after reading this.