1988 - Directed by Pen Densham
Starring Joanna Pacula, Meredith Salenger, Mimi Kuzyk, Nicholas Kilbertus, Sabrina Boudot and Shawn Levy

 I think this film found its way onto my Netfux queue because of a certain actress’ involvement, but as it turns out, she is killed within the first five minutes of the film, leaving me at first wondering what I was in for, as the only reason I wanted to watch this was gone basically before the credits even happened.  I was pleasantly surprised by how engaging the film is, though that was due in large part to the utterly silly nature of the film, but as long as it’s enjoyable, why split hairs, right?

 Opening in the Belgian Congo in the mid 60’s, the film sketches in a few details about Felice, sister to Hillary, who is sent away from the jungles with their aunt. Auntie gives us some sketchy details about a family curse, we’re introduced to a creepy pagan artifact and an altercation between the two that leaves Felice alone when the train reaches its destination and she creeps away from the station before her aunt’s desiccated body is discovered.

 We jump to modern day (or modern day 1988, anyway), where Amy (Salenger) is having her confirmation ceremony at the local church.  During the party that follows, her mother Hillary (Pamela Collyer) receives a phone call from her sister, indicating that “It’s time”, which puts Hillary visibly on edge as she excuses herself from the confirmation party and heads out to go window shopping for a gun.  While she’s on the street a truck is involved in a convenient accident that kills her, opening the door for the return of mysterious Aunt Felice into the family’s life.

In the wake of the death, family friend Brenda (Kuzyk) bonds with Amy a bit, though both she and her father Jack (Kilbertus) seem to be getting along remarkably well so soon after the funeral, but who am I to judge?  Everyone grieves in their own way, I guess, and most of this film is just yadda-yadda-ing over other events to get us to the real threat anyway.

 Speaking of the real threat, Felice (Pacula) makes her presence known when they happen upon her at Hillary’s grave, where she introduces herself to her niece and Jack invites her back to their home so that they can all get to know each other better.  Felice sketches in her life for them: She’s a twice divorced fashion model and general all around hot-looking jet-setter type, which Pacula pulls off rather well, though her eyebrows are a bit much for me.  I know, weird thing to fixate on, but the longer she and her eyebrows are on-screen, the more I wonder what Peter Gallagher is up to, or whether or not the caterpillars will get to the plants in our garden out back.  The eyebrows seem bushy, that’s what I’m driving at, because fuck subtlety.

 Anyhow, the upshot it that Jack seems to take a shine to Felice, because she’s a hot woman showing him attention, while Amy remains unconvinced, mentioning to her friend Heather that she’s on the fence about this whole ‘aunt staying with them’ idea. I don’t know why this reflects poorly on Heather, but the next thing we know, Heather is almost killed at the mall when her necklace is sucked into the escalator when she falls down.  This must be the most well crafted necklace ever made, as it comes close to killing her and doesn’t even break under the stress of being pulled under the metal steps of the escalator; one would think that it normally functioned as a tow chain rather than a teen girls fashion accessory.

 Jack and Felice begin to get rid of Hillary’s stuff while all this is happening at the mall, so the already-stressed Amy really freaks out when she comes home to piles of boxes.  Felice continues to ingratiate herself with her brother-in-law by pointing him in the direction of some much needed work and they eventually end up in bed together, because why else does your Pagan idol worshipping absentee sister-in-law roll into town in this type of movie?  Amy goes through Felice’s room, where she finds not only the creepy idol, but Heather’s sunglasses, specked with blood, which makes her even more suspicious of the circumstances of the accident.  Jack takes her concerns under advisement, but blows her off for the most part.  Felice agrees to check into a hotel when he brings it up to her, leaving her free to work her dark magic in peace without a nosy teen niece poking through her stuff when she’s out.

 Amy and her budding boyfriend Terry (Levy) start trying to find evidence of her aunt’s evil as Felice steps up her game to pass along the family curse.  The final act of the film gets a bit long in the tooth, but there’s some magnificent use of a cat puppet that made me laugh, as well as a few good one liners, so in spite of the general corniness, this flick was really watchable.  Joanna Pacula sports some great 80’s hair, slinking around oozing seduction as though she’s in a Showtime titty flick, and Meredith Salenger is something of a Justine Bateman lookalike, so the female cast is very easy on the eyes, even if they’re trapped in awful 80’s fashion.

 All in all, the silliness of the movie is outweighed in my estimation by the fun you can have with it if you’re not taking it seriously, so give this a rental and wait for the cat puppet to arrive, he was possibly my favorite thing in the film.

 6/10