The Banana Splits (2019)

[GrahamS. 803]

I’ll be honest—I have not seen this film, nor am I sure I will ever see this film, but...

I DO NOT THINK THIS IS A FILM ANYONE ASKED FOR. EVER.

Making R-rated horror films out of obscure Hanna-Barbera shows seems like a dubious proposition at best, but who knows, maybe it’s brilliant? I liked “Meet the Feebles” (a pre-“Lord of the Rings,” REALLY fucked up Peter Jackson movie) back in the day, but I’m not sure that it’s a style that needs to be revisited.

Anyhoo, here’s the YouTube link to the trailer and it’s currently available for streaming. Maybe this film is worthy of discussion, maybe not.

 

[GrahamS. 803]

Ok, I can’t fall asleep and somehow decided to look on Rotten Tomatoes to see what kind of feedback this was getting. In doing so, I managed to find an article/review that does explain how this got made. I’m kinda tempted to watch the film, but I don’t know anyone else who would bother, so I’m holding off for now. 

Here’s the article from ComicBook.com, if anyone is interested. Maybe I can go to bed now feeling spiritually fulfilled by knowing I’ve spread the word that this movie exists.

The Banana Splits Movie Is Strange, Silly, Bloody Fun

By RUSS BURLINGAME - August 14, 2019 06:47 pm EDT

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Warner Bros. Home Entertainment and Blue Ribbon Content have just released The Banana Splits Movie, an R-rated horror movie based on the idea that '70s children's TV icons The Banana Splits remained incredibly popular right up until today, with the puppets eventually being replaced with animatronics that went insane and started a murder rampage when the show was abruptly cancelled. And if all of that isn't weird enough for you, the movie -- which is available now digitally, and will hit DVD and Blu-ray later this month before coming to SYFY in October -- is actually pretty good.

Before getting into the film's content, it is likely a good idea to get into its backstory. How did this even get made? The short answer is that Warner Bros. saw in The Banana Splitsa potentially valuable piece of intellectual property that had not successfully made them any money in a long time. Peter Girardi, who serves as executive vice president of both Blue Ribbon Content (Warner Bros. Television Group’s digital studio) and Alternative Programming at WB Animation, was the one who decided that horror was the way to go, and he said that part of it was just a matter of where there was interest in the characters.

"The characters weren’t doing much," Girardi told ComicBook.com during a recent interview at Comic Con International in San Diego. "I have tried in the past, and colleagues of mine have tried, to reboot a kids’ show. There’s not much interest in it, but in this genre, there’s a lot of interest in it."

Into that environment was born The Banana Splits Movie, starring Wynonna Earp's Dani Kind alongside Sara Canning (The Vampire Diaries), Naledi Majola, and a handful of very talented child and teen actors. The film, like the recent Tremors direct-to-DVD movies made in cooperation with SYFY, was filmed in and around Cape Town, South Africa, and features a number of actors unfamiliar to U.S. audiences that are turning in solid performances.

The Banana Splits themselves are visually indistinguishable from their '60s counterparts in the beginning, and their in-universe TV show is basically a marginally-updated version of the actual show created fifty years ago by children's television luminaries Sid and Marty Krofft. As with a lot of slasher films where the premise is "thing X comes to life and starts murdering folks," the premise itself is not given a ton of thought or explanation, and so it holds up to logical scrutiny fairly well mostly becuase the logic that you would have to apply is so broad. Essentially, a new network executive wants to cancel The Banana Splits Show because it's "old and stupid," and the animatronics' "the show must go on" ethos leads them to attack anyone who might stand in the way of the TV series' continuation.

In the context of a children's show, it's easy enough to look at the Banana Splits and say "wow, those things are kind of creepy." In the context of a horror movie, they take on a distinctly silly air, and the movie leans into that aesthetic, and the inherent goofiness of its premise -- hard. Like some of the Nightmare on Elm Street movies, there are as many laughs here -- almost exclusively black comedy laughs -- as there is gore. The scares themselves aren't great, but the idea here is less to actually scare you than it is to lean into the strange, unsettling visuals of the Splits.

Like a lot of slasher movies, The Banana Splits Movie functions best as a delivery device for cool/strange/funny/creative kills, and dopey one-liners that induce either laughter or groans from the audience. Dani Kind is inspired casting, as she has a similar energy here to what Linda Hamilton has in the Terminatorfranchise. Naledi Majola and Romeo Carere play a couple of cute 20-somethings having one of the most awkward meet-cutes in all of cinema, and child actor Finlay Wojtak-Hissong is believable, with an innocence that allows him to sell some of the movie's strangest and silliest lines without breaking the reality of the film.

1COMMENTS

The Banana Splits Movie will be controversial -- especially among those who still have a fondness for the original series -- but it mostly sticks the landing, buoyed by a great cast and a script and crew that clearly understands exactly how truly bizarre the film is.

Rating: 4/5

[RyanSz 3140]

I saw the trailer a week or so before Comic Con where they were doing a panel for it and I thought it looked interesting albeit a clear grab at mixing a nostalgia show with Five Nights at Freddy's which still has a very strong pop culture following.

[muttnik 476]

16 hours ago, RyanSz said:

I saw the trailer a week or so before Comic Con where they were doing a panel for it and I thought it looked interesting albeit a clear grab at mixing a nostalgia show with Five Nights at Freddy's which still has a very strong pop culture following.

Yeah, I was going to say, it looks like they wanted to make a Five Nights at Freddy's movie but the guy maybe wanted too much money/creative control, so they scrounged around the bottom of the pop culture barrel for the cheapest thing they could get the rights to.

[RyanSz 3140]

So having watched this on Amazon, this is surprisingly a good movie but still pretty crazy enough for the show. It was meant to be a FNAF film but various issues came with that so it became this. The characters are pretty well done for the most part outside of a couple that are pretty tropish, but it's not overly-hammy for the most part. The gore and story are fairly well done and why what's happening with the robots is pretty well explained to where it fits the narrative, unlike Chopping Mall where shit goes down because of three lightning bolts that happen out of nowhere.

[theworstbuddhist 572]

Sounds like lots of fun for everyone