Get the uncut version. You’ll thank me later.
The very rich Remington sisters Elizabeth (Danielle Daven) and Victoria (Anne-Marie Fox) are having a party to celebrate their 92nd birthdays. They have invited all their relatives to the festivities for the weekend. All but one. Christopher is their devil worshiping nephew. The rest of the relatives are not that much better. They are all vying to be the favorite and get a fat inheritance once the old dearies pass on.
Wanting to stay in the old ladies good graces and be included in their will are: Father Percival (Robert DuBois) a Catholic schoolteacher who hates kids, Harvey (Jacques Mayar) the arms manufacturer, Bertha (Florine Elslande) the bitter old maid, Roger the playboy (Michel Lombet), Fred (Guy Van Riet), his trophy wife Jessica (Francoise Lamoureux), Erika the lesbian (Bobette Jouret), her new girlfriend Rachel (Francoise Moens), Helen the snob (Catherine Aymerie) and her husband John (Elie Lison) plus their two kids Suzie (Caroline Braeckman) and Gilbert (Richard Cotica).
Although Christopher was not invited, he did send along a birthday gift for the old ladies. It’s a carved wooden box. When the box is opened a mist comes out and invades the ladies wine glasses. When they drink a toast, it transforms them into demonic cannibalistic monsters that begin to gleefully munch on everyone in the house. Once the chomping starts everyone scatters.
“Rabid Grannies” was released in 1988 and was written and directed by Emmanuel Kervyn. The little old ladies in the movie are neither rabid nor grandmothers. I suppose “Rabid Grannies” was a catchier title than “Possessed Aunts”. It really doesn’t matter. “Rabid Grannies” has been around a long time and has quite a cult following. It is a Belgium movie that was released in the United States by Troma. The people that brought you “Toxic Avenger”, “Class of Nuke ‘Em High”, “Cannibal The Musical”, and “Redneck Zombies”. You know, the classy people.
There are times where nothing is happening except hiding. The special effects are what you would expect for the 80’s. There are lots of quick cuts, so you get the idea of what is going on without a lot of actual gore. It’s more what’s in your imagination gore. There are a whole lot of make-up, prosthetics and people throwing up every color of chunks, mucus, liquid and foam so there is visual stimulus but it’s more of you coming up with your own idea of where all that stuff came from, which is probably the best kind of horror.
That was before I saw the “gore extra”. The gore extra is all the stuff that got cut from the original movie. Why Troma didn’t put that stuff back in I don’t know. They may have on a later release. It makes for a different view on it. For me it was OK. I might have liked it more had I seen the original movie as it should have been before they made all those cuts so it would be whatever they needed for the US release. It’s very campy and there’s humor from the grannies thrown in. It’s just not something on my faves list. If you are a fan of 80’s camp and gross you may feel different. That’s fine. Not everyone likes my stuff either.