Head of the Family (1996)

Tonight for my October Challenge Review, I’m checking out the 1996 Horror Comedy “Head of the Family” from Charles Band. Band is mostly known as a producer and one of the most prolific producer of low budget (Mostly horror) movies in the history of the movies, likely only behind his idol Roger Corman. Every now and then, such as with this movie, he steps behind the camera himself. Well, to be fair he’s taken the directors chair 86 times, which is more than some of the most prolific Hollywood directors. Often the results of these more hands on movies are very good. For example one of my favourite cult classics “Trancers” (1984) was a Band directed movie.

As can often be the case with B-Movie horror, Head of the Family features actors mostly know for appearing in this movie. Indeed many of the actors IMDB bio’s use a photo from this movie for their publicity shot. Unlike some of those movies though (Troll 2 comes to mind), they have been in other films and actually their acting was perfectly reasonable. You don’t make movies for the kind of budgets Charles Band works with by hiring big name Hollywood stars. Anyway, Blake Adams plays the movies lead “Lance” alongside Jacqueline Lovell as “Loretta” while the titular Head is played by J.W. Perra.

Dawn Of The Head.

The plot of the movie sees Lance attempt to blackmail a family of freaks known as the “Stackpool” after witnessing them kidnap someone late at night. The family is run by “Myron” who is little more than a head. Myron’s over-sized brain is able to psychically control the other members of his family, who all are intellectual simpletons. Otis is the family’s muscle, inhumanly strong. Wheeler is the families eyes and ears, with superhuman perception and Ernestina… well I don’t have to tell you what she can do.

Lance has the family knock off the local crime boss so that he can steal his lady, the beautiful Loretta with whom he has been having an affair. After this is done though, Lance presses the rich family for more and causes Myron to take drastic action. This leads to a bizarre performance of Joan of Arc with a potentially fatal finale for Loretta.

Head And Butter.

The plot is simple, but has enough to it to for a little world building and allows the story to progress in a logical linear fashion. While the roles are fairly undemanding, the characters are quite fun. Lance and Loretta especially work well. Despite being total dirtbags, the pair present a lot of charm and personality. It definitely doesn’t hurt to get to see so much (Literally) of the lovely Mrs Lovell either. Most of the Stackpool family are one dimension by design, though their unique talents does makes them memorable. J.W. Perra did a particularly good job as Myron. I’m not sure if playing a head in a wheelchair is a hard role or an easy one, but he did a great job either way.

The effects are mostly in the bizarre look of the family (Myron in specific though Wheeler’s freaky eyes too) and they do their job fine. I have to give a mention to Richard Band’s soundtrack here as being particularly good and well suited to what was on screen. Richard is of course Charlies’ brother, so it’s no surprise to find he’s written over 100 movie scores, most of which for his brother’s productions. This one is a stand out though, with a quirky almost Addams Family vibe to it.

Conclusion (Sorry, No Pun Heading This Time).

Overall this is a fun movie and in my opinion exactly what a low budget B-Movie Black Comedy Horror should be. A crazy idea, straight forward plot and fun characters. A movie executed with minimal fuss and presented with just enough polish to have it stand out above all the other low budget B-Movies. While it is still a B-Movie, it is one worthy to be a cult classic.

For me this a 6/10, though your mileage may vary depending on how much you like these kind of films. If you were a fan of Charles Band produced Horror/Comedies such as Terrorvision, Re-Animator and Evil Bong, you’ll probably get a kick out of this. If not, I imagine this will probably make your head hurt!