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Triloquist (2007)
Rating: 2 1/2 stars
D: Mark Jones. Paydin LoPachin, Rocky Marquette, Katie Chonacas, Robert DiTillio. 78 mins. (Dimension Extreme) 7/08
Leprechaun creator Jones strikes a somewhat nastier note with Triloquist, a road trip in the spirit of Seed of Chucky (VS #55) and twisted contempo fairytale a la Terry Gilliam's Tideland (VS #62) that even comes equipped with its own original tunes, many of them perverse plays on traditional nursery rhymes. Our story sees psycho blonde teen Angelica (LoPachin), her mute, autistic younger bro Norbert (Marquette) and their singularly ugly, seemingly living killer dummy (referred to simply as Dummy and ably voiced by Hill Street Blues vet Bruce Weitz) undertake a violent journey to Vegas, where Angelica harbors lofty hopes of working as a hooker. Black-and-white flashbacks fill in the characters' thin backstory, but most of the movie deals with the trio's largely random slayings and their kidnapping of victim Robin (Chonacas), whom Angelica hopes to mate with Norbert. While light on establishing its own internal logic, Triloquist does display an almost liberating sense of freeform hostility that's tough to resist, unfolding like a more polished, politically incorrect Troma romp. No extras adorn Dimension's disc, but the film itself supplies its share of subversive fun.
~ The Phantom