PSYCHOPATH is definitely a moldy oddity found on the brick of cheddar
known as the horror genre. It's the type of movie you'd find at the
bottom of the five dollar discount bin at your local hock shop. It's a
cross between slasher and exploitation films at their poverty stricken
most bizarre. In other words this flick is so low-budget, so rare, and so
weirdly watchable that fans of bad horror should be attacking each other
with pitchforks trying to scoop up any copies that are available. And who
in their right mind doesn't love bad horror movies? Do people like that
actually exist? What a scary thought.
I certainly give the director of PSYCHOPATH credit for taking the
usual slasher movie storyline and bringing it into much sleazier
territory. PSYCHOPATH was made before the slasher craze of the 80's.
Director Larry Brown created an unusual plot which mixes the combination
of the slasher body counts we've come to know and love over the years,
with fucked up exploitation elements. The result will leave fans of low
grade crap drooling in perverse delight.
The movie is centered around Tom, a majorly screwed up individual who
hosts a show for kids called "The Mr. Rabbey Show" in which he entertains
young children with stories, games, toys, and fucked up puppet shows.
You'd think people might notice that he's not mentally stable when he's
having hand puppets behead each other in front of 6 year olds! Also, Tom
thinks and acts like the kids who watch his show and he refers to them as
his "friends". This is the kind of guy that appears on posters warning
parents to keep their children away from him. In fact, he named the show
after his favorite blanket which he drags around with him wherever he
goes. Also, he calls the producer of his show "mommy"! Folks, this is one
odd mother fucker.
Anyway, by now I'm sure you get the idea that Tom has a few screws
loose. He loves kids and is almost obsessed with both entertaining and
protecting them. When Tom finds out that some of his young viewers are
being physically abused by their parents he flips his fucking lid and
takes matters into his own hands. He feels it's his duty to make sure
that the children will never be abused by their parents again. So he
decides that the most helpful thing he could do would be to wipe the
bastards out! And believe me, the parents in this movie are scum. One
lovely couple even beats their son to death with a ping pong paddle. What
a nice loving family.
So the rest of the movie has Tom going around eliminating abusive
parents in grisly, grimy ways via baseball bat, kitchen knife, lawnmower,
and even his cherished baby blanket Rabbey. As in many of these types of
movies, the running time is filled in with idiotic cops trying to solve
the murders with an investigation that goes nowhere by the end of the
flick. Also, scenes of Tom hanging out in the sandbox with kids and
playing on the slide are shown to further our belief that this is one
sad, sick, depraved heap of shit. The eventual cancellation of "The Mr.
Rabbey Show" causes Tom to go overboard leading to a disturbing and some
might say depressing climax.
This is one of the most unusual horror films you will ever come
across and probably one of the most obscure. With bad acting, music that
sounds like everything from an infomercial to a cheap porno, tacky 70's
fashion, weird killings, endless close-ups of Tom's psychotic eyes
watching from a distance, and a cast of unknowns, what more could you ask
for? [[[How About Some Titty?]]]
The creepiest thing about PSYCHOPATH is actor Tom Basham's
unbelievably dedicated performance as Mr. Rabbey. Sometimes it's hard to
tell whether Basham is acting or not because his performance is so
scarily realistic. And the most offensive thing about this movie would
have to be the fact that it tries to put out a moral message about child
abuse. That message is sent straight to the shitter when a little girl
blows away her abusive mother with a handgun in the final scene. Solve
violence with violence. Nice message to give to the youth of the world. I
think director Larry Brown missed his calling as a youth counselor.
-GORELORD
GORELORD: "Move over Mr. Rogers..........Mr. Rabbey will fuck you up!"