I've always felt that there was something deeply unsettling about The Banana Splits (especially that moose head); clearly I was not alone in thinking this, for The Banana Splits Movie uses the once-popular '70s kids TV show as the basis for a gory horror in which furries Fleegle, Bingo, Drooper and Snorky run amok, killing those present at a recording of the programme (weirdly, the moose head is nowhere to be seen).
Trapped in a studio soundstage, young Banana Splits fan Harley (Finlay Wojtak-Hissong) and his family are hunted by the furry TV stars, who are revealed to be robots that have gone haywire upon cancellation of the long-running show. This premise looks set to be a whole load of demented fun, especially for those familiar with the source material, but Danishka Esterhazy's stilted direction, a general air of cheapness (the Splits' studio set is poverty stricken), and the terrible script all add up to a big dose of mediocrity.
The gory death scenes are the best thing about the film, and include a bisection (with guts!), a severed head, a scalded face, a hammer to the head, and a guy having his arms and legs torn off. But as impressive as most of the bloody mayhem is, one can't help but feel disappointment at the lifelessness of the whole thing, the lack of scares, and the fact that Esterhazy didn't go even further with the lunacy and gruesomeness. The opportunity to go large with the craziness was definitely there and should have been seized with both hands.
