About a year ago, it was announced that Warner Bros was making a horror film based on the late ’60s Sid and Marty Krofft children’s television program The Banana Splits Adventure Hour. Initial reactions were that this was just a way around doing a Five Nights at Freddy’s movie without securing the rights to the FNAF franchise. It was also seen as a bold, if not perplexing, move to re-envision a beloved (if not dated) kid’s Saturday morning tv show as an R-rated bloody affair. As it turns out, neither of these takes were too far off the mark.
The film begins with a young boy named Harley (who may or may not be on the autism scale) preparing to celebrate his birthday by attending a taping of his favorite television show, The Banana Splits, about a quartet of wacky, instrument-playing animals, a la The Monkees. After finding a reluctant replacement for his friend who dropped out due to illness, Harley (Finlay Wotjak-Hissong), classmate Zoe (Maria Nash), and Harley’s family — mom, Beth (Dani Kind), dad, Mitch (Steve Lund), and older brother, Austin (Romeo Carere) — arrive at the studio for the taping. We soon learn that the show has been cancelled and that this will be the finale for the show. Things begin to go haywire when the robotic stars of the show and their creator, Karl (Lionel Newton), become aware of the cancellation. They begin to target fellow cast members, crew, and audience members. Chaos ensues, bodies are mangled, and blood flows. You can probably figure out the rest. The movie really picks up once the craziness of the second half sets in, but I couldn’t help feeling that the film never fully realized its full potential.
The Banana Splits Movie is in a lot of ways a throwback to slasher films from the late ’80s and early ’90s. Kinda cheesy, but high on fun and gore. In a behind-the-scenes featurette, director Danishka Esterhazy said that the inspiration for the film lay in the inherent creepiness of the original character designs. The look of the Splits has been updated a bit for the film, but the creep factor remains. The film relies heavily on practical effects, which always makes for a more satisfying horror experience. It certainly doesn’t hold back on the gore factor either, with several inventive and brutal kills, made all the more, um, interesting as they are carried out by animatronic animal characters. I’ve never played Five Nights at Freddy’s, but from what I gather, the film seems to borrow heavily on some of the themes of the popular game. I mentioned in a previous article how Warners had previously tried to get a FNAF film off the ground, to no avail, so this may indeed have been a fallback. As for the performances, they are about what you’d expect and the dialogue is nothing to write home about.
If you are looking for an entertaining, mindless, wild ride that isn’t your typical horror flick, then The Banana Splits Movie will certainly scratch that itch. And good luck getting that theme song out of your head.
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