El monstruo de las bananas

This is a truly bad film in almost every conceivable way: Poorly scripted, amateurishly acted, badly directed, and incompetently edited, but is saved by director Landis himself: His largely improvised performance in Rick Baker's excellent "monkey suit" for most of the second half of the film is laugh-out-loud funny in places, truly saving an otherwise forgettable film.

Sadly, despite Mr. Landis's encyclopedic knowledge of early cinema, many opportunities to parody or pay homage to other monster movies are missed. For example, the sequence where Schlock is feeding the ducks at the pond is just asking for a reference to the "flower" scene from James Whale's "Frankenstein". (Or is this reference enough? Hmm.) Other similar opportunities are missed throughout.

You won't see big stars or great acting performances in this production. It's not a masterpiece but it's cool because it parodies some famous movies. And, although silly, there are many funny scenes. The scene with the two twin girls and the puppy eating the cake, the scene when Schlock coming out of the cinema disgusted by the big crap with Steve McQueen called "The Blob", the scene when Schlock dismembers the red car, the scene with the boy who asks Schlock to take him to pee and, very funny, the scene when Schlock plays the piano with the blind man. Unfortunately, the ending is sad, beauty kills Schlock.

This is a pretty simple review to write, if you like Monty python stuff, you'll like this movie. It's very surreal, but in the best way possible. I thought it was pretty funny, while not all of the jokes stuck, but you could easily say the same thing about Monty python. Give this gorilla film a chance if you like bizarre comedies!

I actually saw this in the theatre where they filmed the movie theatre sequence just a few months before. I think the movie was only out for about a week, but my buddies and I caught it twice! Even dragged our drama teacher to see it (he loved it).

This is the kind of high-school humor that was a carry over from the Three Stooges and is still going strong, but Landis was one of the first to bring it up to date.

I think they shot this in 16mm (it looks it) and the photography has all the depth of a Wilderness Family entry, but the laughs are very much there. And this had one of the most memorable ad campaign tag lines in history: "Due to the horrifying nature of this film, no one will be admitted."

It was also the only film I know of which had ads featuring a rave by Johnny Carson. It's low budget, but high yuks. I still remember it fondly (Hey, Landis, please return to your comic roots of the 70s and 80s; we don't need another Woody Allen).

I suppose I was a little hard on this film. It entertains, indeed, but it's filled with holes and inconsistencies. I suppose if you ignore the aforementioned "holes and inconsistencies" you could get a kick out of this.

Childish, ridiculous, at times funny... Goofy, filled with rotten acting (and rotten bananas), bad camera-work, bad colours...

It's actually kind of nice to see a pretty well established director's first film and realize it's a total B flick.

I like the king kong reference. And the 2001. And the Beauty and the Beast (Cocteau would be proud... either that or roll over in his grave)