Some films are misunderstood masterpieces. Others are forgotten gems. And then there’s Grotesque—a movie so confused about what it wants to be, it feels like five bad ideas duct-taped together and left in the sun. Released in 1987, Grotesque stars Linda Blair (because of course she’s in it), some discount punk rock villains, a disfigured mutant brother in a basement, and a plot twist so jarringly dumb it deserves its own restraining order.
This isn’t so much a movie as it is a cinematic identity crisis. It wants to be a slasher, a monster movie, a home invasion thriller, a mutant revenge flick, and a comedy—all within 90 minutes. It fails at all of them.
The Plot: Beauty and the Basement Freak
Linda Blair plays Lisa, a special effects makeup artist visiting her family’s winter cabin in the woods. Sounds simple enough, right? Wrong.
Cue the arrival of a gang of violent punks who look like they got rejected from a Motley Crüe cover band for being too greasy. They break into the house, kill her parents, terrorize Lisa, and think they’ve gotten away with murder—until they discover the family’s real secret: Patrick, her deformed, feral, Frankenstein-style brother who lives in a locked room in the basement.
Patrick doesn’t talk, barely emotes, and wears a rubber monster mask… under his rubber monster face. He proceeds to pick off the punks one by one in a series of kill scenes that look like they were shot during a fire drill with a camcorder.
Then—get ready for this—the whole thing turns out to be a movie within a movie. Yes, in a final act twist so baffling it might give you whiplash, we find out the story was just a “test screening” being watched by sleazy Hollywood executives. One of them (played by Tab Hunter!) becomes the real victim of the real deformed killer. Why? Because this movie hates you.
The Cast: Wasting Talent Like It’s a Hobby
Poor Linda Blair. Post-Exorcist, her career became a roadmap of exploitation cinema. Here, she looks visibly bored, like she’s already planning her next paycheck while filming. She tries to emote, she really does, but it’s hard to sell terror when your attackers look like they just stumbled out of a gas station bathroom.
The punk villains are cartoonish to the point of parody. One of them wears sunglasses indoors and snarls every line like he’s auditioning for a community theater production of The Road Warrior. They’re not scary—they’re just annoying. The kind of people who’d steal your beer and cry when you punched them.
Patrick, the mutant brother, is… there. Credit to whoever was under all that latex—it looks like they sweated through three gallons of glue for a role with no dialogue and zero depth.
Direction and Tone: Who Approved This?
Director Joe Tornatore doesn’t so much direct as he lets things happen. Scenes don’t flow—they stumble, trip, and crash into the next with all the grace of a greased-up tricycle. There’s no tension, no suspense, and the editing is so clunky it feels like someone dropped the film reels and tried to reassemble them with scotch tape.
The tone is all over the place. One moment it’s a violent home invasion, the next it’s a soap opera about family secrets, and then out of nowhere it’s Tales from the Crypt with a wink at the camera. It’s like five writers each wrote a different genre, tossed the scripts in a blender, and hit “purée.”
The Special Effects: Homemade Horror
For a movie featuring a protagonist who works in special effects, Grotesque sure skimps on them. The kills are bloodless or poorly lit. When they do go for gore, it looks like it was sculpted in a middle school art class using expired Silly Putty.
Patrick’s mutant look is meant to be tragic, but it’s more tragic that the makeup budget was apparently $11 and a bottle of Elmer’s glue. When he roars, it’s less “terrifying beast” and more “man with peanut butter stuck to the roof of his mouth.”
Dark Humor: Unintentional Laughter, Guaranteed
There are definitely laughs to be had here—just not where the filmmakers intended:
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A punk gets killed by being pushed down the world’s slowest staircase.
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Patrick tears through the house like a coked-up linebacker, but no one hears him until he’s in the room breathing like Darth Vader.
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The final twist? “Gotcha! None of this mattered!” Cue laughter, eye-rolling, and a slow clap for wasted potential.
Missed Opportunities: All of Them
This could’ve been a tight revenge thriller. Or a cool, mutant-themed creature feature. Or even a sharp satire about violence in Hollywood. Instead, it tried to be everything and ended up being nothing.
Linda Blair could’ve carried this with a better script. The punk gang could’ve worked with better writing. Patrick could’ve been a tragic figure. Instead, we get a Frankenstein knock-off with the emotional depth of a houseplant and a plot twist that’s the cinematic equivalent of pulling the fire alarm at the end of a bad school play.
Final Thoughts: Grotesque? More Like Groan-worthy
Grotesque is the kind of movie you show at parties—right before your friends ask why you hate them. It’s a mess of genres, ideas, and prosthetics, none of which work together. The only thing truly grotesque here is the editing and the sheer waste of potential.
Watch it if you want to witness the slow, flaming descent of ‘80s horror into VHS bargain bin purgatory.
Rating: 1.5 out of 5 latex masks. One point for Linda Blair. Half a point for making it to the end.
