There’s something audaciously awesome about The Banana Splits movie. The very idea that something so obscure and innocent as a kid’s show from the 1960s could be resurrected and turned into a horror movie is just, well… Bananas.
A young boy gets his best birthday wish ever whenever his family give him tickets to see The Banana Splits Show live. Being his favorite show, he jumps at this chance, but soon, his birthday wish becomes a nightmare when The Banana Splits go on a murderous rampage when they discovered that their show is being cancelled.
Let’s be honest… This movie is a joke. This would be like doing a movie where Auggy Doggie decides to eat children or the Laff a Lympics were a battle to the death. There are few people today who have fond memories of watching The Banana Splits as children and the property has largely faded into obscurity. The idea of bringing it back as an R-rated horror movie is the single most stupidly brilliant move in the history of idiotic genius moves I’ve ever witnessed.
Don’t get me wrong, this is not a good movie and it’s not a good horror movie either. The only reason why this movie even exists is because of Five Nights at Freddy’s. Blue Ribbon knew that a Five Nights at Freddy’s movie was going to come out soon and so, they took an existing IP, and basically ripped off the Five Nights at Freddy’s formula. As a whole, The Banana Splits movie is completely unoriginal and, from a writing standpoint, it’s lazy at best.
The characters are wooden and uninteresting, the dialogue is pretty terrible, and most of the kills lack any imagination or shock value. You can tell this movie was shot on the cheap and it shows in every shortcut, flimsy set, and ratty costume. The acting is almost Birdemic bad.
Given that this is a horror movie starring The Banana Splits, I suppose I expected more subversion and more surprise in the movie itself. Instead, what we got, is a simple slasher movie that offers no surprises at all.
It also doesn’t help that the movie is not scary. Not even in the tiniest bit.
Still, I don’t hate this. This movie is a joke, and it’s one joke repeated over and over and over again… But I rather liked the joke. Yes, it’s a bad joke but it’s a joke that I enjoyed nonetheless.
There’s just something crazy, stupid, awesome about seeing the gosh darned Banana Splits murdering people even if it is unoriginal and formulaic.
I actually wouldn’t mind seeing more movies like this… Movies that resurrect old IPs from the Hanna Barbara catalogue and turns them into horror movies. How would Top Cat handle a zombie invasion? What if a guy got bitten by an ape, and under the full moon turned into Grape Ape?
The possibilities are endless.
Stupid, but endless.
Jason Gaston 