Plenty to Love with Ooga Booga.
I thought this was the first Charles Band movie I had seen and as soon as it was over I had a look to see what else he had done. He’s behind over two hundred and fifty titles which include Troll, Re-Animator and Puppetmaster which makes perfect sense as I thought his style familiar and no wonder. Band has knocked out loads of these tongue-in-cheek horrors with varying degree of success but he has never changed his unique style. I didn’t enjoy his old movies as I did this one. Perhaps, now I’m far older than when I last saw one of his creations, I can appreciate what he’s trying to put across, but mostly, stop criticizing and simply enjoy it for the crazy film it is.
A young black man is murdered by corrupt cops, after he tried to help a store clerk who was shot in the head. As his spirit leaves his body, an electrical surge causes it to go into Ooga Booga, the warrior doll. The clerk had just been held up by three incompetent gangbangers, and the African American guy was only trying to help when the redneck cops arrived and accused him of the killing. The gangbangers and dirty cops are all controlled by one person, but now it’s time for revenge and little Mister Booga is in the mood to kick ass.
I don’t quite know why but I loved this stupid movie and will no doubt watch it again soon. It’s one of those ‘so bad it’s good’ sort of films, with terrible acting and corny scenes. For example, when our hero is killed and his girlfriend finds out she starts talking to his picture which looked like a scene from Grease. I thought she was about to start singing. The three gangsters were really funny too, with the big heavy guy playing the dummy and being terrible at it. As a matter of fact there were only three actors who gave acceptable performances and one of them was Stacy Keach.
Charles Band handles the puppet well when you consider that not once did we see Ooga Booga running or anything else other wiggle from side to side and go “Bwahahaaa” (I tried to write the sound down and came up with that!). Anyhoo, it’s funny. If you like comedy horrors where the humor is in the bad acting then you will absolutely love this crazy flick.
Recommended
Ed’s Grade: B-
Review by Ed Blackadder
