31 Nights of Halloween Horror - Night 3 - The Banana Splits Movie



The Banana Splits Movie
89 Mins.
Dir. Danishka Esterhazy
2019/USA

The Banana Splits.  We all remember watching them growing up, we all love the song, and love our memories of watching the show.  We should all really stick to those memories, because this film sucks beyond belief.  Definitely not a so bad it's good movie, just a so bad, please don’t ever make me watch this again movie.

What little premise there is, some kid loves the Banana Splits, he has no friends, his family feels bad for him, so they get him tickets to a live taping of the show.  So mom, dad, (who is a dick) and older brother (who looks like Mike Nesmith from the Monkees), head to the live studio taping of the show, which has an audience capacity of about 20.  While there some luckily viewers are selected for a behind the scenes tour.  These annoying people consist of one adult couple who are uber-fans and another dad and daughter team who think she should be in show business.  The dumb main kid in the movie doesn’t get picked, but Michael Nesmith pleads with an assistant producer to pull some strings.  Meanwhile behind the scenes it is revealed the show has been cancelled and this is the final performance.  I guess because the show gets canned the Banana Splits characters, (who are actually robots in this movie and not people in suits), decide to go crazy and kill everyone in the studio.  That’s pretty much the premise of the film.  They try and build characters by making the dad have an affair that gets revealed, and dealing with the other victims, I mean audience members. But it is all so much of a why bother, who cares kind of thing.


The movie is just people being chased and trying to escape and the Banana Splits trying to kill them.  Simple enough, and really that is all we want.  While a couple of the kills are creative and gory fun, most of the film is not outrageous enough to be interesting.  The Banana Splits going on a killing spree should be completely over the top, everything about the movie should be out of control and silly just like the original show was.  This film, while being stupid also tries to be serious and it just winds up failing on both accounts.

I am kind of amazed Warner Bros, actually licensed this property to be made into a violent horror film.  I am not really sure who the audience for this movie is.  For those too young to remember the Banana Splits, this movie means nothing, it just seems like a poor man’s Five Nights at Freddy’s.  For those of us who grew up on the Banana Splits, did we really want to see this movie made?  The trailer seemed outrageous and fun when I first saw it, and I think we all thought it was a hoax in the beginning.  Ultimately, the trailer is probably the best thing about this film and it should have just been left at that.  Because in reality, the best thing about the Banana Splits is our memory of them.  We remember the show being great, but after a segment or two we have all had enough.  Except for that theme song.  That was so damn catchy you could sing it all day.  So with the Banana Splits Movie, you are better off sticking with the original show or the sundae.



Comments

  1. Jennifer BeckOctober 6, 2019 at 10:36 AM

    Just caught the commercial for this. It hits my area next week & it made our watch list!

    ReplyDelete
  2. MetalKyle666October 22, 2019 at 10:37 AM

    I never had any interest in seeing this, so I'll keep it that way

    ReplyDelete

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