The wife and I decided to rent "Simon Says" based on its particularly nasty looking trailer and the fact that we saw Crispin Glover's name above the title, prompting me to joke "Cool, George McFly as a slasher!" We knew nothing about the film prior to stumbling across it on our cable's On Demand, and thus settled in for what looked like some goofy slasher doin's.
I must admit, the first twenty minutes or so of "Simon Says" were pure torture. Lord knows I've seen my share of slasher films over the years, and obviously so have the makers of this film because the first quarter of the movie sticks so closely to the "rules" of slasherdom that it almost becomes a parody. When five teens (each representing a time honored Slasher Cannon Fodder Sterotype, of course -- i.e. The Brainy Chick, the Slutty Chick, the Jock Guy, the Stoner Guy, and the Yuppie Chick) pull off the beaten path to do some camping in a near-deserted small town, it takes them no time at all to get on the bad side of local hillbilly store proprietor "Stanley" and his retarded brother "Simon" (both played by Glover), so I was already thinking "Oh man, this movie is gonna suck." The characters were cardboard cut-outs, the dialogue was howlingly bad, and the foreshadowing (of what is supposed to be a big 'shock twist' at the end, which I will not reveal here but I'm sure everyone will see coming from a mile away) was so telegraphed that I almost considered switching the movie off. I'm glad I stuck with it though, because once the 'action' finally starts in "Simon Says," gorehounds will be in for one helluva nasty, gooey, blood-covered treat. Seems Stanley/Simon is quite handy with pickaxes and has booby-trapped the woods with some very original contraptions that hurl blades, gears, and other implements of death at our teenage heroes (as well as a few other bystanders who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time) with lethal, often hilariously gory accuracy. It wasn't long before I was cackling as our teenaged idiot heroes were running aimlessly through the woods, being chewed to bloody stumps while Crispin Glover chewed on the scenery for all it's worth. The guy's always BEEN weird, and this movie gives him the opportunity to just go completely off the wall. He looks like he had a hell of a lot of fun in this dual role.
By the tail end of "Simon Says" we even get a "dinner with the family scene" (when Stanley takes the lone surviving girl to meet "Maw and Paw" who are of course rotting corpses sitting around a table), providing another nod to many '70s and '80s exploitation/splatter movies and adding yet another level of sick weirdness to what was already a pretty sick movie. By the time this one ended my wife and I could only look at each other and laugh, and we've been making "You forgot to say Simon Says!" jokes for a couple of days now.
"Simon Says" is not a GREAT movie by any means but it's certainly worth a look if you haven't been getting your recommended daily allowance of carnage at the video store. It starts out pretty average but suddenly and without warning becomes its own weird and unpredictably hilarious beast.
I must admit, the first twenty minutes or so of "Simon Says" were pure torture. Lord knows I've seen my share of slasher films over the years, and obviously so have the makers of this film because the first quarter of the movie sticks so closely to the "rules" of slasherdom that it almost becomes a parody. When five teens (each representing a time honored Slasher Cannon Fodder Sterotype, of course -- i.e. The Brainy Chick, the Slutty Chick, the Jock Guy, the Stoner Guy, and the Yuppie Chick) pull off the beaten path to do some camping in a near-deserted small town, it takes them no time at all to get on the bad side of local hillbilly store proprietor "Stanley" and his retarded brother "Simon" (both played by Glover), so I was already thinking "Oh man, this movie is gonna suck." The characters were cardboard cut-outs, the dialogue was howlingly bad, and the foreshadowing (of what is supposed to be a big 'shock twist' at the end, which I will not reveal here but I'm sure everyone will see coming from a mile away) was so telegraphed that I almost considered switching the movie off. I'm glad I stuck with it though, because once the 'action' finally starts in "Simon Says," gorehounds will be in for one helluva nasty, gooey, blood-covered treat. Seems Stanley/Simon is quite handy with pickaxes and has booby-trapped the woods with some very original contraptions that hurl blades, gears, and other implements of death at our teenage heroes (as well as a few other bystanders who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time) with lethal, often hilariously gory accuracy. It wasn't long before I was cackling as our teenaged idiot heroes were running aimlessly through the woods, being chewed to bloody stumps while Crispin Glover chewed on the scenery for all it's worth. The guy's always BEEN weird, and this movie gives him the opportunity to just go completely off the wall. He looks like he had a hell of a lot of fun in this dual role.
By the tail end of "Simon Says" we even get a "dinner with the family scene" (when Stanley takes the lone surviving girl to meet "Maw and Paw" who are of course rotting corpses sitting around a table), providing another nod to many '70s and '80s exploitation/splatter movies and adding yet another level of sick weirdness to what was already a pretty sick movie. By the time this one ended my wife and I could only look at each other and laugh, and we've been making "You forgot to say Simon Says!" jokes for a couple of days now.
"Simon Says" is not a GREAT movie by any means but it's certainly worth a look if you haven't been getting your recommended daily allowance of carnage at the video store. It starts out pretty average but suddenly and without warning becomes its own weird and unpredictably hilarious beast.