Dimension Extreme has recently developed the Midas touch, snatching up such interesting and refreshing horror flicks as Broken, 13: Game of Death, and Teeth… but just as Lions Gate did a few years ago when they were at the height of the horror distribution game, Dimension Extreme has gotten greedy and decided to snap up any piece of shit that will qualify as horror. Triloquist is another in a long line of evil dummy movies that have traditionally plagued the horror genre since the inception of the horror concept itself. Apparently, to some people, there’s something unbearably creepy about watching a block of wood talk on its own… these people probably cried when they saw clowns as a kid, as well, which is why films like Magic and Dead Silence even exist.

The concept of the evil ventriloquist dummy was done to death… as soon as Magic ever hit the big screen. How many evil ventriloquist movies do we need? One was quite enough. Triloquist tries to prove that previous statement wrong in the viewers mind by adding a slight twist… not only is the dummy a homicidal maniac, but the dummy’s owners are just as insane. Together a crazy woman, her mute moronic brother, and their evil dummy head out on a road trip to Vegas so that the brother can become a Vegas star, even though, unless you’ve got a talking Jalapeńo pepper on a stick, the odds of that happening are about as good as the odds of me being put in charge of Saturday morning children’s programming. Along the way, the trio kills, kidnaps, and incests their way into trouble, and what starts out as a tight family unit quickly devolves into a dysfunctional escapade that is about as intelligent as it is entertaining… which is not very much at all.

The film is poorly directed by failing, once up and coming, director Mark Jones… who has hit a bit of a 15 year dry spell since his last successful movie, Leprechaun. What do you do when you can’t get anything else off the ground? You go back to the same well and try and copy the success you had before. It worked for George A. Romero, it might work for Mark Jones as well… but it doesn’t. Jones ridiculous second foray into the miniscule killer sub-genre is a pathetic attempt at horror and comedy. The movie is only slightly entertaining at best, and at its worst it’s a mind numbing montage of people driving in a car to some of the worst songs that have ever been put into a movie. The movie is only seventy eight minutes long, but 18 of those minutes are taken up by people driving along while a shitty song plays. What the audience is left with is a bloated story that feels more like a Tales from the Crypt Episode, rather than a full length feature film… as a matter of fact, does anyone remember the Tales from the Crypt episode entitled: Mr Ingles, Ventriloquist? That’s basically what this is. Weak sauce Mark Jones. What’s next, an evil garden gnome? Don’t get any ideas, you hack.

The acting in the film is shit… the guy that plays the mute says about five lines, and he still sucks. Paydin LoPachin, who despite sounding like a character from the Star Wars movies, delivers a terrible, uneven performance as Angelina, the most psychotic member of the little family. There are moments where LoPachin is perfect and spot on with the craziness, but then there are others where she sort of stumbles over her lines or delivers them in the wrong manner. Had she had a better director, maybe she could have done an extra take or two and gotten it right… unfortunately, she had Mark “I think that Lucky Charms guy is scary” Jones.

The gore factor in Triloquist is just plain weak. Most of the kills are done in a weak cutaway manner, leaving all the brutality up to the viewer’s imagination, and let’s face it; most viewers’ imaginations will quite literally be beaten into a stupor by the stupid nature of the film within the first fifteen minutes. The kill count is pretty weak, but it’s the way the director bitches out on those kills that is truly disappointing.

The film is a sad reminder of the wave of films that ruined the horror genre in the ‘90s when seemingly every dumb idea in the book was tried. Yes, we sent our crazed killers into space. Yes, we gave them one-liners every five minutes. And yeah, some of us even got a kick out of Leprechaun… the first time around. But those days are long gone, and now horror fans merely cringe at the thought of sitting down and watching those films, just as you will be cringing if you sit down and watch this generic piece of shit.

Final Synopsis: Triloquist sucks. There’s boobs and stuff… but boobs don’t make a good horror flick. Very disappointing stuff from Dimension Extreme. Skip this crap.

Points Lost: -1 for shitty acting, -1 for some major plot holes, -1 for not having much of a plot to begin with, -1 for lack of quality kills, -1 for making another ventriloquist movie, -1 for shitty songs, -1 for way too much filler

Lesson Learned: Just because it worked once doesn’t mean it’s going to work again.

Burning Question: Who wants to see Triloquist in Space: Back 2 tha Space Hood?

Triloquist
3/10

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