Dr. Giggles (1992)


I may have seen Dr. Giggles back in the 1990s, but it's another case of seeing so many horror films that they all blend together.  If I did see it I was left with at least the impression that I didn't like it.  Not surprising as this movie mainly serves to give Larry Drake, who made the leap to the big screen as Durant, one of the two villains in Darkman, a film in which to cash in his new-found fame.  Still, I noticed this is from Largo, which is Larry Cohen's production company, and had Graeme Whifler as a cowriter with director Manny Coto.  Whifler directed early videos for the Residents and Renaldo and the Loaf and has a certain surreal style that he lends to the few feature films he made.  

Dr. Evan Rendell (Drake) escapes from an insane asylum where he is known as Dr. Giggles, a brilliant schizophrenic who thinks he's a doctor.  Rendell returns to his childhood home in the town of Moorehigh.  The reason for his return is that his father was murdered by the townspeople for removing the hearts from a number of patients in the 1950s in a failed attempt to transplant them into his dying wife. 

Rendell begins with a number of random teenagers that come to goof around in his home, but soon sets his sights on Jennifer Campbell (Holly Marie Combs), a high school senior with a heart problem.  Putting his revenge plans to the side he decides that he is going to save her life whether she wants him to or not. 

The biggest problem with Dr. Giggles is that Drake isn't given anything to work with when it comes to Rendell.  He's reduced to spouting medical one-liners.  It is meant to be darkly comedic, but it is also quite annoying and unoriginal.  The whole story of a doctor driven mad trying to save a loved one has been done since the days of silent films, but that is still not an excuse for being lazy.  A good portion of the first part of the movie is absolute trash, dull and uninspired in almost every way except for the occasional weird point-of-view shot. 

Something happens midway.  At about the time when most horror films come to a dead stop Dr. Giggles starts to get good.  Not fantastic, but good.  There are more characters, there is more backstory, and one starts to care what happens to Jennifer.  Keith Diamond, as a young police officer that no one will listen to, becomes a key player.  Rendell, briefly, becomes a great villain, and the movie becomes a bit more surreal.  I'm quite sure this is Whifler's doing and wish that the rest of the movie was like this.  There is even a great ending shot.  Unfortunately, it's ruined by another 15 minutes of movie that doesn't need to be there, and a tone that returns to the earlier part of the movie.

This frustrates me to no end as this could have been what it wants to be, which is near parody of the slasher genre, and not a self-aware one, but pure satire with some scares and creative filming.  Funhouses are overdone, but somehow the funhouse scene in this felt fresh.  This movie has so much going for it but, instead, it wallows in bad puns and uninteresting kills, rather than rising to its full potential. 

Dr. Giggles (1992)
Time: 95 minutes
Starring: Larry Drake, Holly Marie Combs, Keith Diamond
Director: Manny Coto

 

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