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Manny Coto, the director, is let down in this wannabe slasher classic by Manny Coto, the cowriter.
Dr. Rendell (Larry Drake) is an escaped mental patient who returns to his old hometown to exact revenge. It seems years before, his dad killed seven patients while looking for a heart for his ailing wife. Being a good dad, he involved his young son in his diabolical scheme before being killed by angered townfolk. He did manage to save his son, however, by sewing him up in his dead wife's corpse so he could dramatically emerge later at the morgue...gosh, all my dad ever did was encourage me to do better in school. Rendell becomes fixated on Jennifer (Holly Marie Combs) who has mitral valve prolapse, a heart condition that could worsen. Jennifer is having boyfriend troubles, her dad (Cliff De Young) has shacked up with young Tamara (Michelle Johnson), and Jennifer's mom died after going in for a routine heart operation. The script throws in enough victims who get slashed and ripped before we have a chance to care about them. We also have the rookie cop who figures the whole thing out, despite the rest of the police department poo-pooing the teens' stories about a lunatic doctor with a bad bedside manner. You can script the ending.
The set-up for the film is introduced immediately, and then the cast really has nothing to do but wait for Rendell to come a-killin'. This makes for some pretty suspenseless scenes. We know who the killer is, we know why he kills, and we know who he is going to kill. Coto has great visuals here, but his script gets goofier and dumber as it goes along. The excellent funhouse mirror room scene is offset by an embarassed cast with embarassing lines. Poor Drake, normally a superb actor, is given a ton of bad doctor cliches to say. I have never been a fan of the "funny" killer in horror films, and this film proves my point. I could not warm up and laugh, especially at all the carnage going on here (reread those first four sentences of this review). If you want to laugh at buckets of blood, see "Body Melt" or "Killer Tongue." Coto also ignores rather an obvious plothole. Drake escapes from a mental institution, where he was listed as unidentified. Yet, the town where his father did all the killing, and where the young Drake disappeared from, is within fifty miles of the asylum. If a seven year old boy went missing from a local mass murderer's family estate at the same moment a seven year old boy was knocking on the asylum's front door, wouldn't suspicions be raised? I guess news does not travel fast in Movieland. Also, a lot of the action takes place in the old basement offices of the killer doctor. The film makers shot this in an obvious real hospital, which means the basement of this decrepit house is the size of a football field, complete with working fluorescent lights. Sloppy, sloppy. I am not kidding when I say every cliche a doctor has uttered is here. From "physician, heal thyself" to Drake turning to the audience when wounded and asking if there is a doctor in the house.
"Dr. Giggles" is not funny, and in need of an emergency suspense transplant. I call this one dead on arrival.
Stats:
(1992) 95 min. (2/10)
-Directed by Manny Coto
-Written by Manny Coto and Graeme Whifler
-Cast: Larry Drake, Holly Marie Combs, Cliff De Young, Michelle Johnson, Glenn Quinn, Keith Diamond, Richard Bradford, John Vickery, Nancy Fish, Sara Melson, Zoe Trilling, Darin Heames, Doug E. Doug
(R)
Media Viewed: Home Video
