Note: Warner Bros. Home Entertainment provided me with a free copy of the Blu-ray I reviewed in this blog post. The opinions I share are my own.
Label: Warner Bros. Home Entertainment
Region Code: A
Duration: 86 Minutes
Video: 1080p HD Widscreen (1.78:1)
Audio: English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 with Optional English Subtitles
Director: Danishka Esterhazy
Cast: Dani Kind, Finlay Wojtak-Hissong, Romeo Carere, Steve Lund, Sara Canning
Synopsis: One banana, two banana, three banana, GORE! The cult-favorite animal rock-band from Hanna-Barbera’s 1968 The Banana Splits Adventure Hour variety program is back with a blood-spattered vengeance!
I was born in the early part of the 70's but I have only a passing memory of ever having watched The Banana Splits Adventure Hour as a kid. It didn't have much impact on me to be honest, but when I was a bit older the punk band The Dickies cover of the theme song "The Tra La La Song (One Banana, Two Banana)"
definitely did, more so than the kids TV series ever did, which was produced by Hanna-Barbera with puppetry from H.R. Pufnstuf's Sid and Marty Krofft.
This film takes that weird kids TV show and turns it into an R-rated slasher film, with a young kid and his family attending a live filming of the series, which in this film anyway, is a long-running kids TV show, but which in reality I think only ran for about thirty episodes. The kid, Hartley, is annoying, and a bit too old to be obsessed with these animatronic puppet characters in the show, but his family humors him and takes him to a taping if the show anyway.
As the show is being filmed news begins to spread behind-the-scenes that the show has been canceled, and for some reason the animatronic puppets begins killing people in the studio after the taping. This corny bit of fun was a bit of a surprise for me, this is basically a slasher film with killer animatronic puppets, which is probably weird for anyone who loved this show as a kid, but as I have zero nostalgia for it I really dig the irreverent r-rated way they turned it on it's head. The kills are surprisingly gory, particularly a scene of someone being sawed in half, and while not all the gore-gags are awesome I appreciated the carnage in the spirit that it was intended.
I think all of the characters here are all fairly annoying, so it's fun to see them killed off as the film moves along. We have an assortment of meat for the grinder including a stage dad, various show-runners and cast members, the main kids awful father, and a pair of social media influencers, and they all get what they deserve and then some in a myriad of delightfully gory ways.
Audio/Video: The Banana Splits Movie (2019) arrives on Blu-ray+DVD+Digital from Warner Bros. framed in 1.78:1 widescreen in 1080p HD. The transfer looks fantastic, it's crisp and finely detailed throughout. Audio comes by way of an English DTS-HD MA 5.1 with optional English subtitles, everything is well-balanced with some good use of the surrounds.
Extras include a handful of featurettes and trailers for WB's Joker, It: Chapter Two, Batman: Hush, The Curse of La Llorona, and Critters Attack!
The 2-disc Blu-ray+DVD+Digital combo arrives in a standard Blu-ray keepcase with a one-sided sleeve of artwork, the same artwork is also featured the slipcover.
Special Features:
- Banana Splits: Behind the Horror (8 min)
- Terror on Set (6 min)
- Breaking News! The Banana Splits Massacre (1 min)
The Banana Splits Movie is a solid slice of gory entertainment, it deconstructs a beloved 70's kids TV show and turns it into an r-rated bit of bloody weirdness, that while silly and campy was a ton of fun.
