Shrunken Heads

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Comedy, Horror, Thriller

An enthusiastically brain-damaged outing from Charles Band's prolific B-Movie outfit Full Moon Entertainment, this cult-move manqué, directed by Oingo Boingo co-founder Richard Elfman (brother of composer Danny Elfman) is weird even by Full Moon's unique standards.

The demented plot begins with a modern-day Bowery Boys-type bunch foiling a street gang's robbery scheme only to bring down the wrath of hilariously butch crime boss Big Mo (Meg Foster, complete with Elvis pompadour), who commands her chief axe-man to rub them out.

Thanks to the voodoo skills of newsstand vendor Sumatra (Julius Harris), the three boys' severed heads are reanimated (it is never specified why this is all Sumatra could salvage) as tiny airborne mini-zombies with assorted super-powers. This leads to the inevitable blow-out between the Heads and Big Mo's legions, as well as one of the weirdest romantic subplots on record.

Initially an abortive bid for midnight-movie infamy (much like the director's Forbidden Zone), this wacko twist on the basic comic-book superhero scenario has a playful nature that distances it from cult-horror territory but gives it a certain kooky charm; it features a main-title theme by the director's big-shot brother.