HYSTERICAL (1983)

'HYSTERICAL': FIT ONLY FOR THOSE STILL IN DIAPERS

Philadelphia Inquirer, The (PA) - July 4, 1983

Author: Desmond Ryan, Inquirer Movie Critic

In recent years, film critics have bemoaned the tidal wave of toilet humor that has swept over American comedies. Hysterical breaks new ground in that it is manifestly designed to appeal to those who have yet to be toilet-trained.

In what amounts to consumer advice of admirable candor, one of the Hudson Brothers - on his way to a supposedly hilarious autopsy - warns that you are going to need a strong stomach to get through it. An empty head is also advisable for coping with the endless inanity of Hysterical. The film is set - or rather irretrievably mired - in a tiny resort town called Hellview. That is the one apt idea in Hysterical, since watching its scant 87 minutes seems like an eternal punishment.

At Columbia pictures, the executive who told Steven Spielberg that E.T. was a dumb idea for a movie still goes home with a fat paycheck. The people who approved the financing and production of Hysterical will doubtless continue in gainful employment, and that is a depressing prospect. Usually, when a movie is this abysmal, the makers can cite a commercial reason for its existence. With Hysterical, it is hard to imagine anyone out of diapers
finding a minute of it remotely amusing.

The snickering screenplay is mostly the work of the Hudson Brothers, and it strays in and out of parody of horror films and hits like Jaws and Raiders of the Lost Ark. As a lampoon of the mad-killer genre, Hysterical is merely frightful. Yellowbeard, the current pirate spoof, acknowledges the problem of the parodist by offering more than puns on old Errol Flynn pictures. The horror movie presents a trickier proposition for humorists, whose ranks do not include the writers of Hysterical.

The occult and, more recently, the slasher films have been churned out in such numbers that each new one is no more than a collection of cliches and borrowings from its predecessors. Directors trying to be serious confront the dilemma by coming up with more inventive ways to kill their characters. Playing in this area for laughs is a losing bet almost every time. With the exception of High Anxiety, horror lampoons have nowhere to go but down.

Hysterical trots out every shopworn device with a child-like air of having discovered something fresh, and that lends the movie its especially awful quality. It has the look of a film that has been assembled at random. Richard Kiel, who played the steel-toothed villain in Moonraker, is a lighthouse keeper who returns from the dead to create mayhem in Hellview.

His attentions disturb the current occupant, a hack writer who has bought the property in the hopes of creating the great American novel. To call what happens in the rest of Hysterical the work of hack writers is to demean that lowly calling. The film forces an actor to look at a lighthouse and say, "I hope batteries are included."

Its one saving grace is the repeated appearance of the village idiot - the target audience for a film like Hysterical. "You're doomed," he says at every opportunity. It amounts to a fair warning to anyone unfortunate enough to have parted with honest money to sit through Hysterical.

HYSTERICAL

Produced by Gene Levy, directed by Chris Bearde; written by Bill Hudson, Mark Hudson, Brett Hudson, and Trace Johnston; photography by Robert Ragland, music by Don Morgan, distributed by Cinema Group; running time: 1 hour, 27 minutes. **SINGLEG*Captain - Richard Kiel

Sheriff - Clint Walker

Mayor - Murray Hamilton

Parents' guide: PG