{"id":4932,"date":"2012-10-04T03:20:10","date_gmt":"2012-10-04T07:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=4932"},"modified":"2012-10-04T03:20:10","modified_gmt":"2012-10-04T07:20:10","slug":"remembering-the-willies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2012\/10\/04\/remembering-the-willies\/","title":{"rendered":"Remembering "The Willies""},"content":{"rendered":"

\"willies-cover\"<\/a>As a child \u201cThe Willies\u201d was pretty much as horrifying as it got. As an eleven year old it was a disgusting, creepy, and horrifying little anthology horror film with some gruesome special effects. And it was also a childhood favorite, a film I saw over and over further feeding my lust for horror. And almost twenty five years later\u2026 it still has great sentimental value, it\u2019s still a movie I\u2019ll always appreciate as a favorite of a simpler time but\u2026 yeah, it pretty much sucks. Badly. It\u2019s about as stripped down and derivative as you can get with a plot that really just relies on chestnuts of horror to do the work for writers that can\u2019t really be creative.<\/p>\n

With anthology films you either get a great story with some lame ones to follow (Campfire Tales), or many great stories with one flop (Creepshow); often times there aren\u2019t very many anthology flicks that follow the middle ground. \u201cThe Willies\u201d proves the exception. It\u2019s a rare horror film and one that\u2019s pretty hard to find. It\u2019s on DVD finally in an awful VHS transfer but you\u2019ll be hard pressed and out of luck if you expect a special edition with restored picture and sound, that\u2019s for sure. Maybe somewhere down the line Synapse will take a crack at it. Or Anchor Bay? It could happen, look at \u201cMonster Squad.\u201d 1990’s straight to video anthology horror film \u201cThe Willies\u201d is sadly a film that will live on for a little while longer and probably just fade off with not many people wanting to bring it back. And that\u2019s for good reason.<\/p>\n

It takes a bit of urban legends, a bit of campfire story atmosphere, and provides only ONE really interesting horror tale that\u2019s pretty much just a rip off of \u201cThe Crate\u201d from \u201cCreepshow.\u201d And it features an ending that\u2019s as cheesy as it gets, with a \u201cThe End?\u201d capper, and a \u201cbig\u201d cast of names including Sean Astin, Michael Bower, and James Karen who are about as dazzling as it gets, really. And just to jog your memory, it\u2019s the hobbit, the heavy kid from \u201cSalute your Shorts,\u201d and the Pathmark dude who also starred in \u201cReturn of the Living Dead.\u201d \u201cThe Willies\u201d can provide some bonafide gaffs and giggles, and if you sit a kid down to check it out, they may gain the same pure horror out of it that I did, but the entire film feels like nothing more than an extended episode of \u201cTales from the Darkside,\u201d and revolves around the promise of that one story that is the height of the film.<\/p>\n

And of course we have a small group of kids outside their house camping out for the night until they\u2019re interrupted by their brother Michael enters to tell them some spooky stories that is unlike anything they\u2019ve ever heard. For a while, \u201cThe Willies\u201d drifts along from segment to segment to cheesy dialogue (There\u2019s even a reference to \u201cThe Goonies,\u201d hyuk, hyuk!), with some padding that\u2019s just outright blatant. There\u2019s the tale of the evil carnival ride, there\u2019s the obese lady who went to eat at a chicken place and didn\u2019t realize she was eating fried rat, and there\u2019s that oldie, but goody, the old woman who tried to dry her small dog in a microwave.<\/p>\n

I love, love, love urban legends and at one point I was just addicted to them, but \u201cThe Willies\u201d doesn\u2019t stage these as well as films like \u201cUrban Legend,\u201d did. While it\u2019s creative, the little cut away’s seem like hackneyed attempts to let the film run its course before we wind down to the only two stories in the whole film, and when we do, they\u2019re hit or miss.
\nLittle Danny is constantly picked on by three kids who are bonafide bullies, but\u2026 yeah, they\u2019re not so bad compared to the bullies I\u2019ve dealt with, and the first story about the Monster in the Bathroom is a lot of fun, but poorly executed. Why does this monster have a fascination for poor geeky Danny? What sets him apart from everyone else? Is he there to help or just grab a new pet? And were the writers ever clear if the janitor (Kramer) was the monster, or just knew how to control the monster. Nonetheless, the story here is very simple. Danny is bullied, Danny meets the monster who proceeds to feed on his bitchy teacher.<\/p>\n

\"wqillies-2\"<\/a>It all comes to an end when the bullies are lured into the bathroom and get eaten themselves, thanks to Danny who barricades the bathroom. Surely, it\u2019s a twisted tale, but one that\u2019s really not as good as it could be since the whole concept of the monster is incredibly fuzzy, and Danny is so comical you eventually want to beat the snot out of him. Most importantly, wouldn\u2019t anyone notice that his teacher and three kids are missing? The monster himself is such a horrible rip off of the Crate monster it\u2019s rather embarrassing. He growls the same, he\u2019s as mysterious, and his carnage is pretty similar, especially when the teacher is pulled up into the ceiling and ripped to shreds as her legs dangle wildly. The puppeteering is admirable, but still it\u2019s tough to believe what we\u2019re seeing, especially since the monster may or may not be the friendly janitor.<\/p>\n

The second tale involves Gordy Belcher a disgusting, greedy, and grotesque obese lad who has a fascination with ants and flies to the point where he builds miniature diorama\u2019s comprised of dead flies. His fun comes to an end when he buys a growth formula from a cantankerous old farmer, and inevitable the flies grow to ginormous proportions and revolt, murdering the boy. This is a segment that\u2019s slightly more structured but not as fun since the gross out attempts work too well, to the point where it\u2019s just difficult to finish. Bower has always had a knack for playing the disgusting fat kid, which is a compliment, no doubt, but this character is also too similar to what he\u2019s already played in past work. \u201cThe Willies\u201d is a horrible movie, and one that you may either love or hate, and watching it again after buying it online really makes me think that the only reason why I want to keep it is because of nostalgia. If I\u2019d approached this as a new viewer, it\u2019d have suffered my scorn.<\/p>\n

It all ends with a cheesy and confusing capper as Bowen ends up *gasp* as Astin\u2019s father, and he enters the tent showing the kids his TRUE face (the bathroom monster) which then fades out leaving the children\u2019s fates unresolved and my eyes rolling. \u201cThe Willies has a lot of potential, but it\u2019s sadly just another form of proof that good anthology movies are tough to create, and if you\u2019ve seen \u201cCreepshow 3\u2033 you learn that they\u2019re not only difficult, but when they\u2019re bad, they\u2019re really bad. My brother and I technically owned it on VHS for a number of years until it was stolen by a neighbor, but we still fondly remember the title and everything that it had to offer us for shits and giggles, and bits of frights here and there. Back then \u201cThe Willies\u201d was about as scary as it got, but then\u2026 back then we loved \u201cHoward the Duck,\u201d so you can never tell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a child \u201cThe Willies\u201d was pretty much as horrifying as it got. As an eleven year old it was a disgusting, creepy, and horrifying little anthology horror film with some gruesome special effects. And it was also a childhood favorite, a film I saw over and over further feeding my lust for horror. And […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,13],"tags":[103,219,477,737,1155],"class_list":["post-4932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-halloween-horror-month","category-pcthugs","tag-anthology","tag-comedy","tag-horror","tag-nostalgia","tag-vhs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4932\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}