As far as I can tell "The Granny" is the only horror movie that softcore siren Shannon Whirry starred in. Like everything else she ever had top billing in, it went straight to video, and in this case, I had never even heard of it.
The film opens with a flashback to ancient times. A woman is being exorcised, lying on a bed, her wrists in shackles. Her face is deformed, her voice is obviously downtuned, and she even throws up. I guess they couldn't afford the special effect to make her head spin around.
The movie outdoes "The Exorcist" in terms of blood, though, if that's a plus to anyone. The possessee grabs her father by the head (even though her wrists were just in shackles?) and apparently gouges his eyes. She then forces his head between his legs before snapping his neck.
These people are attired as though they are in the middle ages, but they have American accents.
Twice the possessed woman is able to appear as her unpossessed form to ensnare the silly men who crowd around her. The second time, she becomes young and beautiful, and bares her breasts, providing nudity in the first ten minutes.
The possessed woman is apparently defeated... by sunlight. Um, is she a vampire as well?
Extraordinarily, this movie's cinematography was done by Wally Pfister, who aside from having a legendarily unfortunate name, also did the photography for "The Dark Knight"!
The first post-credits scene shows the beautiful Shannon Whirry, here bespectacled and pony tailed, doting on the titular "granny", who has a harsh voice, and is demanding and a little bit unpleasant. She feels that her other family members are vultures after her money, but she will provide for Whirry, not them. Though she also tells Whirry that nobody would have her.
The hated family members, described by Granny as "a pack of jackals", arrive. (It is Thanksgiving). It is true that they don't seem to care much for Granny, or family in general: one woman plans to stay drunk all weekend, and a boy describes Granny as a corpse you can't kill. They also disparage Shannon Whirry's character, as a perceived loser.
We then see masculine hands putting some white powder into soup.
Granny tells everyone else to go away because she wants to watch wrestling.
Dorothy Parker was wrong: some women look stunning with glasses, Whirry included.
When the obnoxious teenage boy (who looks older) calls wrestling fake, Granny tries to start a fight with him!
But then a priest arrives. In a private conversation, Granny reiterates that Whirry is the only member of her family with a decent bone in her body, but when the priest calls her beautiful, Granny strongly disagrees. The priest gives her some kind of potion which buzzes as though with electrical energy and she is able to get up out of her wheelchair.
The priest reveals that he knows Granny gave over a million dollars to humanitarian courses, but cut her family out of her will. He says the potion will make her live forever - and wants for her to become part of an international movement of goodness. He gives her three wishes - no sunlight on the potion, perform a cleansing ritual before you take it, and... we miss out on hearing the last one.
Whirry, despite being so decent, eavesdrops on this conversation secretly.
Sunlight will cause the elixir to mutate.
The elixir mutates almost immediately, and even changes colour, becoming blood red. Granny's cat licks some of it up and mutates into a bad special effect.
When Granny goes to eat her soup, everybody freezes, apparently all knowing it is poisoned. Good on Granny - she doesn't eat it, but she does say to her son "You're the load I should have swallowed!"
I know this lady is supposed to be unpleasant, but come on, how can you not love a lady who would say something like that? She's hilarious.
She collapses anyway.
Inexplicably, they get her a doctor. Why would you get a doctor for someone you just tried to kill?
It is revealed that her evil family (cursed by greed, says Shannon Whirry) have falsified her will.
She comes to in bed, and is seen by a weird doctor, but it becomes clear that she's going to die.
Granny tries and fails to perform her cleansing ritual, and drinks more of the elixir, seeming to choke on it. Finally, she dies.
A lawyer reads the fraudulent will to her family, Whirry included. They have faked it so that they each get a share of her $170 million dollar fortune, but Shannon only gets $1.
The family have a big party, not even trying to hide their joy.
Shannon has a heart-to-heart with the youngest member of the family, a little girl, who is the only other one who isn't evil.
Upstairs, one of the guys cheats with one of the girls. Perhaps they are in-laws. She shows him her breasts.
We get a scene in the morgue around Granny's body, where the coroner is with his girlfriend, and both are southern and apparently a little slow. The woman wants to steal the ring from Granny's finger. When the man tries to use an electric blade to cut her finger off and remove the ring, Granny comes back to life and uses it on him. Like the previous eye-gouging scene, there's a lot of blood, but it doesn't look too realistic.
Back in Granny's house, two other in-laws are also looking to have sex, while the reanimated Granny comments from outside, and you know she's going to get some vengeance.
She slices him up with a scalpel, again, not in much detail.
We finally get some topless nudity from Shannon at almost exactly the one hour mark.
One of the ladies retires to Granny's attic, I guess, and strips to her petty coat. She makes a lot of strange, almost sexual noises, while draping herself in Granny's fur. A brief shot shows her topless, but then the scene cuts and she's dressed again. Was this a continuity error?
As this is a horror movie, and she has gone off on her own, you know what's going to happen next: Granny appears. The furs all come alive, however unrealistically, and we get the most violent death scene so far, as they rip the skin from her neck, showing what it looks like underneath.
We get more nudity from that lady who showed her breasts to the guy before. Were they just getting their money's worth? Either way, she's nothing compared to the beauty we just witnessed when Whirry undressed. Her breasts are so obviously fake that they look weird. Inexplicably, she dances alone, topless, in front of the mirror.
One of the other guys in enticed by a woman we know to be Granny in a different form. She seems to be going down on him, but keeps putting her head up intermittently, until, of course, she turns into Granny, and I guess we are supposed to think that she bit his wang off.
A showdown between Granny and Shannon Whirry is delayed by a family dinner sequence in which all of the now deceased family members are reanimated - although none of them drank the potion?
Even Granny's long dead husband comes back, a decrepit corpse, though he should really just be a skeleton.
The priest guy from before comes back, apparently to save the day, even though this whole thing is basically his fault - as Granny quite rightly tells him.
The final fight scene is predictably tedious and generates no excitement whatsoever. but the movie does have a pretty cool final scene.
I enjoyed moments of "The Granny", but overall, thought it was pretty average and forgettable.
The film opens with a flashback to ancient times. A woman is being exorcised, lying on a bed, her wrists in shackles. Her face is deformed, her voice is obviously downtuned, and she even throws up. I guess they couldn't afford the special effect to make her head spin around.
The movie outdoes "The Exorcist" in terms of blood, though, if that's a plus to anyone. The possessee grabs her father by the head (even though her wrists were just in shackles?) and apparently gouges his eyes. She then forces his head between his legs before snapping his neck.
These people are attired as though they are in the middle ages, but they have American accents.
Twice the possessed woman is able to appear as her unpossessed form to ensnare the silly men who crowd around her. The second time, she becomes young and beautiful, and bares her breasts, providing nudity in the first ten minutes.
The possessed woman is apparently defeated... by sunlight. Um, is she a vampire as well?
Extraordinarily, this movie's cinematography was done by Wally Pfister, who aside from having a legendarily unfortunate name, also did the photography for "The Dark Knight"!
The first post-credits scene shows the beautiful Shannon Whirry, here bespectacled and pony tailed, doting on the titular "granny", who has a harsh voice, and is demanding and a little bit unpleasant. She feels that her other family members are vultures after her money, but she will provide for Whirry, not them. Though she also tells Whirry that nobody would have her.
The hated family members, described by Granny as "a pack of jackals", arrive. (It is Thanksgiving). It is true that they don't seem to care much for Granny, or family in general: one woman plans to stay drunk all weekend, and a boy describes Granny as a corpse you can't kill. They also disparage Shannon Whirry's character, as a perceived loser.
We then see masculine hands putting some white powder into soup.
Granny tells everyone else to go away because she wants to watch wrestling.
Dorothy Parker was wrong: some women look stunning with glasses, Whirry included.
When the obnoxious teenage boy (who looks older) calls wrestling fake, Granny tries to start a fight with him!
But then a priest arrives. In a private conversation, Granny reiterates that Whirry is the only member of her family with a decent bone in her body, but when the priest calls her beautiful, Granny strongly disagrees. The priest gives her some kind of potion which buzzes as though with electrical energy and she is able to get up out of her wheelchair.
The priest reveals that he knows Granny gave over a million dollars to humanitarian courses, but cut her family out of her will. He says the potion will make her live forever - and wants for her to become part of an international movement of goodness. He gives her three wishes - no sunlight on the potion, perform a cleansing ritual before you take it, and... we miss out on hearing the last one.
Whirry, despite being so decent, eavesdrops on this conversation secretly.
Sunlight will cause the elixir to mutate.
The elixir mutates almost immediately, and even changes colour, becoming blood red. Granny's cat licks some of it up and mutates into a bad special effect.
When Granny goes to eat her soup, everybody freezes, apparently all knowing it is poisoned. Good on Granny - she doesn't eat it, but she does say to her son "You're the load I should have swallowed!"
I know this lady is supposed to be unpleasant, but come on, how can you not love a lady who would say something like that? She's hilarious.
She collapses anyway.
Inexplicably, they get her a doctor. Why would you get a doctor for someone you just tried to kill?
It is revealed that her evil family (cursed by greed, says Shannon Whirry) have falsified her will.
She comes to in bed, and is seen by a weird doctor, but it becomes clear that she's going to die.
Granny tries and fails to perform her cleansing ritual, and drinks more of the elixir, seeming to choke on it. Finally, she dies.
A lawyer reads the fraudulent will to her family, Whirry included. They have faked it so that they each get a share of her $170 million dollar fortune, but Shannon only gets $1.
The family have a big party, not even trying to hide their joy.
Shannon has a heart-to-heart with the youngest member of the family, a little girl, who is the only other one who isn't evil.
Upstairs, one of the guys cheats with one of the girls. Perhaps they are in-laws. She shows him her breasts.
We get a scene in the morgue around Granny's body, where the coroner is with his girlfriend, and both are southern and apparently a little slow. The woman wants to steal the ring from Granny's finger. When the man tries to use an electric blade to cut her finger off and remove the ring, Granny comes back to life and uses it on him. Like the previous eye-gouging scene, there's a lot of blood, but it doesn't look too realistic.
Back in Granny's house, two other in-laws are also looking to have sex, while the reanimated Granny comments from outside, and you know she's going to get some vengeance.
She slices him up with a scalpel, again, not in much detail.
We finally get some topless nudity from Shannon at almost exactly the one hour mark.
One of the ladies retires to Granny's attic, I guess, and strips to her petty coat. She makes a lot of strange, almost sexual noises, while draping herself in Granny's fur. A brief shot shows her topless, but then the scene cuts and she's dressed again. Was this a continuity error?
As this is a horror movie, and she has gone off on her own, you know what's going to happen next: Granny appears. The furs all come alive, however unrealistically, and we get the most violent death scene so far, as they rip the skin from her neck, showing what it looks like underneath.
We get more nudity from that lady who showed her breasts to the guy before. Were they just getting their money's worth? Either way, she's nothing compared to the beauty we just witnessed when Whirry undressed. Her breasts are so obviously fake that they look weird. Inexplicably, she dances alone, topless, in front of the mirror.
One of the other guys in enticed by a woman we know to be Granny in a different form. She seems to be going down on him, but keeps putting her head up intermittently, until, of course, she turns into Granny, and I guess we are supposed to think that she bit his wang off.
A showdown between Granny and Shannon Whirry is delayed by a family dinner sequence in which all of the now deceased family members are reanimated - although none of them drank the potion?
Even Granny's long dead husband comes back, a decrepit corpse, though he should really just be a skeleton.
The priest guy from before comes back, apparently to save the day, even though this whole thing is basically his fault - as Granny quite rightly tells him.
The final fight scene is predictably tedious and generates no excitement whatsoever. but the movie does have a pretty cool final scene.
I enjoyed moments of "The Granny", but overall, thought it was pretty average and forgettable.