Head of the Family (1996)
“We’re going to see if we can find out what the second lawyer’s name is. Sort of like a guessing game, only with torture!”
Charles Band, creator of the Puppetmaster series which I reviewed HERE created this fun little oddity.
The story is that in usual no-name American town Lance and Loretta are having an affair behind her husband the town thug Howard’s back. Things take a further turn for the worse when Howard decides extort money from Lance.
While away one night for some secret backseat action they discover the local strange, very strange, family the Stackpools killing someone.
Lance decides to use this to his advantage and seeks out the family to blackmail them into getting rid of Loretta’s husband Howard which they do.
The problem is Lance doesn’t learn the lesson he just taught Howard which is to not extort money and think the best thing to do is now bribe the family of killers.
One more problem for him is that the family have special abilities and they consist of..
Wheeler who has extraordinary sight and hearing,
Ernestina who is the sexy one and can seduce anyone,
Otis has the strength of a dozen men and the head of the family Myron.
Myron is the intelligent one who controls the others telepathically. He is also a giant head with tiny arms and legs.
Think M.O.D.O.K
So naturally the family want rid of Lance and Loretta.
This was quite funny with the all the actors doing a better than expected job but Loretta actress Jacqueline Lovell stands out more than everyone and it isn’t because she spends a lot of the time naked but because she honestly seems to be unashamedly having fun while hamming it up.
And that is the point of this film. It is everything that a good “bad” film should be. Everything you love about B-movies. The characters are odd enough, the plot is odder and oddest still is how it works.
It seems that Lance and Loretta can only have a discussion when they are having sex. It doesn’t matter if they are talking about how to kill Howard or if Lance is proposing because sex will not get in the way of them having a conversation and sex does try…
Many times.
I liked how they did the effects for Myron even if they don’t blend too well into the scene at times or most of the time. It is Myron (and his look) as well as Loretta that elevate Head of the Family into being something better than it should be.
There isn’t much gore here but if you have seen any older Full Moon Pictures film before then you have an idea of what to expect.
This gets a big head from me.
Er that didn’t sound right.
