FORMAT: BLU-RAY, VOD | CERT: 18 | DIRECTOR: DANISHKA ESTERHAZY | SCREENPLAY: JED ELINOFF, SCOTT THOMAS | STARRING: DANI KIND, FINLAY WOJTAK-HISSONG, ROMEO CARERE, STEVE LUND, MARIA NASH, NALEDI MAJOLA | RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
The Banana Splits Adventure Hour was a late ‘60s children’s variety show featuring a titular pop-rock band quartet of fuzzy anthropomorphic animals engaging in various shenanigans, which people of a certain vintage may remember from its syndication into the early ‘80s. In the reality of The Banana Splits Movie, the show never went off the air, having remained a constant staple for decades that has somehow survived without alteration or updating. Even if you’ve never heard of the show (or are only familiar with its jaunty theme tune that soundtracked Hit-Girl’s massacre in 2010’s Kick-Ass), the film shows you enough of it to provide you with all the context you need.
The story follows Harley, a young Banana Splits superfan whose mother gets the family tickets for a live taping, where for reasons suggested but are never entirely quantified, the Splits go rogue and embark on a murderous rampage. Rather than the men in suits of the real-world show, these characters are animatronic automatons, which makes them even more sinister, since people can sometimes be reasoned with but robots are emotionless.
Before all that, a very slow burn introduces the main characters and their awkward relationship dynamics, to the extent that were you not aware of what the film was about, early on you could easily mistake it for a family drama. Aside from a few sinister moments, the horror aspect of the film takes some time to get going, with it being over 30 minutes until the first on-screen death. What violence is shown is considerably less bloody than you might expect, achieved almost entirely by practical effects with a few CGI augmentations.
The family dynamics form the emotional core, with mother Beth trying to hold things together for the excitable and slightly immature Harley and older son Austin, a teenage waster, while her husband Mitch (Harley’s father and Austin’s stepfather) remains disinterested in any actual parenting. Snatches of dialogue reveal their history in ways that feel natural and unforced, and serve to round them out as people. The pool of potential victims is widened by a pair of YouTubers, an over-ambitious father trying to make a star of his young daughter, and various of the studio’s employees, all of whom can be grouped into three general types: those we are to sympathise with, others who are obnoxious but essentially harmless, and several who are full on scumbags. The varying levels you want to see each character die a brutal death adds some tension, especially when it’s unclear who is about to be offed in each scene.
However, as much as emotional empathy can augment a horror movie, it’s the carnage we’re here for, and what we are given doesn’t disappoint. Various segments of the children’s show, such as an obstacle course and a magic show, are repurposed as elaborate kill scenarios, while the unmoving faces of the Splits make them all the creepier as their soulless eyes stare unfeeling at their screaming and suffering victims as they are killed with childlike impromptu weapons like a prop lollipop or an oversized mallet.
The Banana Splits Movie is a collection of familiar tropes and fairly standard developments, but they surprisingly come together into something far more compelling than typical DTV horror titles.
