Sandcooler "Parts Of The Family" is from the same director as "Maniac Nurses", but it's never quite as trippy as that flick. It is about twice as incompetent though. While "Maniac Nurses" at least had some kind of atmosphere to it, this just looks cheap and nothing else. There's not much in the way of plot either. It starts off okay with some (albeit very low-budget) action scenes, but then we're stuck in a boring old house for most of the running time. The gore scenes are laughably unconvincing. We never ever see a weapon actually touch a victim, it's all cut-aways and ketchup wounds. There's just no excitement whatsoever to any of the kill scenes.So why a 5? Well, the movie does have some charm to it. I'm just a sucker for Belgian horror cinema, mainly because there's so little of it around. It helps that this movie is shot mostly with Belgian actors who are forced to speak English for the international market. This leads to some really awkward and thus magnificent line readings, particularly from the hapless police inspectors. Furthermore, lead actor Bob Dougherty does bring some charisma to his role as a gangster. His dialogue is nauseatingly repetitive (basically nothing but threats), but somehow he still sells it and stays entertaining throughout. Strange how he only appeared in two films and called it quits. Cecilia Bergqvist isn't going to win any Oscars for her performance, but she's topless in the very first scene! Talk about not wasting any time. P.S: I've seen the original version, not the re-release by Troma. I hear that version is actually better, but I haven't obtained a copy yet.

movieman_kev Led to believe that Ron Jeremy, Stan Lee & Debbie Rochon were in this (they're in the Troma re-edit, but not the version that I saw via Netflix on the xbox 360), I decided to give this one a go. It's about Elle (Cecilia Bergqvist) and how she gets taken hostage one day by a failed bank robber who holes up in her house while the police (one of which is Troma's Lloyd Kaufman, always energetic). have the place surrounded. he hostage is far from helpless though and has a few plans up her sleeve to turn the tables.Part cop drama/part slasher/part zombie movie, this film is all over the place and as such never truly decides what it wants to be. It's a schizophrenic experience, yet not one without merit (little as it may be) There are some parts that shine, but the film as a whole lacks a cohesiveness to make it a good film sadly.Eye Candy: Cecilia Bergqvist gets topless at length multiple times My Grade: C

vandwedge If you're like the me from a couple of days ago, you're wondering what the deal is with there being two different versions of this movie on the DVD. You're wondering what the difference is between the two versions, which is better, and if either are worth watching. And you're also wondering why no one else on IMDb has commented on this yet, and why not even Troma.com has much info on it. Well I can answer all of those for you!The two versions on the DVD are the original version and the Tromatic version. The original version is awful. The bad reviews on this website so far all describe the original version, and they're all correct. There's almost nothing worthwhile in the original version. It's clichéd, slow-paced, nonsensical, and just generally an abomination of film-making. And this is coming from a fan of low budget horror films.Now, the Tromatic version is a brilliant piece of work and is highly recommended. But what is it? It's *not* an entirely new film -- it's a re-cut version of the original with newly filmed scenes added in. And, I must stress this point heavily, all of these changes are made specifically to make fun of the original version. The Tromatic version is a *parody of the original*, and a damn good one at that.After sitting through the original film, I was miserable. I was thinking, I need some way to vent my frustrations after sitting through an hour and a half of such junk. It turned out that the Tromatic version filled that role perfectly. It adeptly (and hilariously) points out all of the (many) flaws of the original film. And it even adds additional comedy not related to anything. The Tromatic reedit of this movie is truly a brilliant piece of work, salvaging what seemed at first to be a completely unredeemable film. Lloyd Kaufman is a genius.

Coventry This is Troma film-making at his purest: an amateurish splatter-movie with an ultra-thin and ridiculous storyline but with twisted characters and nasty make-up effects everywhere. When watching "Parts of the Family", you pretty much get the idea that this was filmed without a script (coincidentally or not, nobody actually is credited as the writer) and the absurd plot-twists seem to be improved on the set. The movie opens with a bank robber who flees from the police. The chase ends in front of an old mansion where he takes a yummy young girl hostage and entrenches himself in the house. The hostage turns out crazier than the robber as flashbacks illustrate that she once was the mansion's housekeeper who butchered the entire family that lived there. Things get even more messed up near the end, when zombies start to appear from the cellar and the girl transforms into a blood-drinking, corpse-licking witch. "Parts of the Family" was entirely made by Troma's loyal Belgian department that previously delivered "Rabbit Grannies" (a guilty pleasure of mine) and "Maniac Nurses". The film is not dubbed and all the Belgian actors speak their lines in English. They do a reasonably good job although you can clearly hear that English isn't their native tongue. Especially in the second half, the gore and sleaze is really outrageous! Zombies (wrapped up like mummies) break out and still their hunger on the police forces that surrounded the house. The legendary Lloyd "Keeper of Crap" Kaufman has a supportive role as police commissioner and he too has his eyeballs ripped out by severely decomposing zombies! I bet his fan – and enemies – will love to see this happen. Overall, this isn't exactly a film you HAVE TO see before you die but it's good entertainment. Definitely better than "Maniac Nurses".