Coons! Night of the Bandits of the Night

Review by Nick Peron

Okay, I'm going to be honest with you folks here for a moment: no matter how biased I may be when it comes to the fine folks at Troma entertainment, when it comes to their acquisitions, it can often be a hit or a miss. For every great movie they pick up, like Jefftowne , Unspeakable , Blades , or Redneck Zombies , there are awful awful movies like Tainted , Igor and the Lunatics , and -- uhg -- Actium Maximus: Wrath Of The Alien Dinosaurs (In Actium's defense, it was a film with a grand vision that was ruined by piss-poor production values.) The folks at Troma have made their share of stinkers (as anyone who has seen Big Gus What's the Fuss can attest to) and I suppose it's with that in mind that they will release near anything based on the fact that, there must be someone out there that will want to watch it and, and enjoy it (Should you find any of these people out there, please call your local institution as they are surely looking for that person.) As such, I am always hesitant to give a Troma acquisitions a go.

However, at the advice of Troma's own Ron MacKay (a charming gent who is regularly at the helm of the Troma table at your local comic book/horror/foot fetish convention, why not go by and say hi!), I decided to give Coons! Night of the Bandits of the Night a go, a film directed by Travis Irvine.

I never doubted his judgment for a second.

If the redundant title is any indication, the movie is a horror/comedy (the exact chemical division between the two is 3 parts comedy to 1 part horror) film. Also, before you're racial indignation comes up to the fore, please be advised that "Coon" in this case is just short for raccoons, not black people.

If the title of the film hasn't been enough indication, it's a movie about killer raccoons that terrorize the Raccoon Creek Camp Ground, a popular place where teenagers go to drink, party and fuck. Because it's such a problem area, the Mayor (played by Tom Lyons) has the park ranger, Ranger Danger (Brian Kamerer) to setup surveillance equipment around the site to watch out for drunken teens busting the place up. Danger is disenfranchised with his job, and has just recently given up drinking and is simply bowing down to pressure from the boss.

Naturally, as these things go, a group of party animal teenagers decide to party down at the camp for some fun. Among them is Ty Smallwood (Lehr Beidelschies) who is still a virgin and is being dragged out by his best friend so that he can finally get laid. Naturally a party breaks out, complete with it's very own Pop-Punk band (the Happy Campers) that gets broken up by Ranger Danger who's trying to make the mayor happy. When he busts a young man for underage drinking and that boy is killed in custody by a raccoon, everyone thinks it's just one critter going around killing people.

This prompts Ty to get involved because the beautiful Melissa (Rachel Edwartoski) offers herself up to the guy who manages to kill the raccoon. Ty manages to kill it by fluke alone, however as it turns out that this critter is one of an entire clan of killer raccoons and they are out for blood!

Although the film has a small budget, and limited cast (almost all of the male characters play multiple roles, and resort to wearing wigs and fake mustaches to appear as different characters.) it is highly funny and entertaining. While it does have some very intelligently crafted one liners, it does resort to using toilet humor -- which isn't as gratuitous as some Troma movies, and is done regularly enough to not get tired.

The raccoons were live once, it's clear that they had been taxidermied, and that adds to the wonderfully ridiculous plot. They zip around (sometimes obviously on fishing wire) laughing kind of like the baby from Dead Alive, while gleefully attacking their prey. The fact that their faces are stuck in weird snarls and their awkward positioning's make these little critters look slightly creepy, but also humorous at the same time.

High Points:

If you like shit jokes, especially raccoon shit jokes, this movie has plenty so if you find poo flinging (especially by means of catapult) than this movie is certainly one to watch.

The excellent rendition of the stereotypical stupid jock.

The hilariously and well placed local news spots with a news anchor named Dick Weener (played by Irvine himself)

The hilarious commentary on American's irrational fear of Muslims in the post-9/11 world. Watch for the scenes where the white characters react to Al Jazeera's (Alexander Raghuvir) brandishing of a lighter.

A musical number in a movie about killer raccoons is always a plus.

Again, those hilarious raccoons.

Possibly the funniest reference to Jurassic Park ever.

Finally, one of the funniest Lloyd Kaufman introductions to a Troma DVD ever (so yes, you don't have to brave yourself for another one of those "dub in the blank" introductions with Lloyd and the very talented Debbie Rochon again.)

Low Points:

If you absolutely loath pop-punk, then you're going to want to strike yourself deaf as the Happy Campers play two songs back to back.

In summation, you shouldn't walk into Coons! thinking that it's going to be a high concept big budget movie (how someone can have these expectations for every movie they watch is as about as astounding as they are stupid), but it is still a very very entertaining film, very well written, and is very very funny. So go out and see Coons! next chance you get, if you don't have your head way up your ass, you'll enjoy it very much.