In his calculated bid for cult status, director Alberto Sciamma makes Killer Tongue as weird and wacky as possible, throwing in such outlandish ingredients as a talking extraterrestrial tongue that inhabits the mouth of a female bank robber, a group of poodles transformed into drag queens, a nun given a sexy make-over by the aforementioned poodle people, a fascistic wig-wearing prison guard with a pet dove, and all manner of bloody deaths including lots of full body explosions; the result is a predictably garish, gaudy, gory and extremely camp exercise in cartoonish excess (think John Waters' films/Earth Girls Are Easy/Priscilla, Queen of the Desert mixed with any other outrageous nonsense that crosses your mind),but it is one that frequently falls flat on its outlandish ass, not just by being dreadfully unfunny and extremely irritating at times, but for simply for trying TOO hard.

The cast, clearly believing that this film would become a favourite with the B-movie crowd, thus immortalising them in the pantheon of cult cinema, put in embarrassingly OTT performances, desperately trying to inject a manic sense of fun into proceedings but failing spectacularly. Robert Englund is particularly cringe-worthy in his role as the jack-booted guard who leers at photos of hunky men in the john, but everyone else gives him a good run for his money. Meanwhile, Sciamma ladles on almost every vulgar and ostentatious camp cliché possible, only drawing the line at delivering a musical number involving gay dwarfs in sequined tutus and a troupe of fire-breathing gimps.

About the only people who deserve any praise for this mess are Bob Keen and his Image Animation team, who don't let the inanity of the whole project prevent them from providing some impressive animatronic tongue effects and quite a bit of nice splatter.

"Killer Tongue" is an absurd tale about alien invasion..and we ain't talkin' your average boring X-files nonsense here. A young woman (who's lover is in jail for highway robbery they committed together) is "invaded" by an alien in her soup. This leads to a weird transformation of her tongue!?! It suddenly grows to 10 feet and has now got a taste for human flesh. The tongue also starts to talk! Her 4 poodles also eat the soup and are transformed into homosexuals/drag queens! While this happens, her boyfriend is workin' in a prison camp lead by a sadistic and dovelovin' Robert Englund (in an amusin' over-the-top part). This gory black Sci-Fi comedy properly tries too hard to make it as a gross-out cultfilm but, still, I was highly entertained by the insane scenes of death by tongue. The FX are excellent (it won prices) and the acting is pretty good so check it out. Viewers easily offended should stay clear of this freakish flick.

An odd one, this. Following in the footsteps of other recent Spanish flicks like ACCION MUTANTE and DAY OF THE BEAST, KILLER TONGUE strives for all out comedy of the Troma variety. There are many strange things in this film which you'll see and then afterwards wish you didn't see. It's definitely unique, but whether it's good or not is another question...

All of the elements required for a cult film are here. Perverse sex? Check. Gory violence? Check. Cheesy special effects? Check. Poodles who transform into annoying transvestites? Check (okay, maybe not the last one). Unfortunately, as is nearly always the case these days, much of the comedy in this film just isn't funny, and not a lot really happens until the last twenty minutes or so. It's just people walking/driving about in the desert, which isn't really that interesting. This feels like the idea of a killer tongue was invented first by some drunk, and then a plot loosely constructed around it. Which is a shame, as the potential was there for it to be something interesting.

The cast, too, are wasted in useless roles. Everybody shouts at each other and acts in an offbeat way, but this isn't what I'd call acting of any sort. Another shame, because there are quite a few cult/exploitation actors and actresses involved. Firstly, the heroine, Melinda Clarke, more familiar to red-blooded males for her piercing eyes (amongst other things) in RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD 3, here looking a lot like a goth. Her performance is at best poor. The male lead, Jason Durr, is uniformly bland, and manages to survive despite being shot, stabbed in the chest, and having many other injuries inflicted upon him. Plenty of scope for some wisecracks a la Bruce Willis but it came to nothing.

Ed Tudor-Pole turns up too, although for what reason I can't quite say - perhaps to up the ante in terms of weirdness. Then there's Doug Bradley, who's never really been in anything good apart from the HELLRAISER series (he played Pinhead),which is yet another shame as he's quite an interesting actor. It turns out, then, that the most memorable actor in the show is in fact Robert Englund, who steals every scene he's in as a sadistic prison officer. Englund's acting is completely over the top, appropriate for the tone of this film, and frankly he's a delight. It's just a shame that his role isn't bigger. With Englund and Bradley involved, the film was begging for some 'Freddy vs. Pinhead' in jokes, but we get none.

The special effects won awards but it's hard to see why. The only impressive thing is that they were achieved on quite a low budget, but the mixture of CGI and rubber is easy to spot. It's difficult to see who would like this film. Most of the characters are obnoxious. There's a lot of crudity (aiming for a teen audience perhaps?). The gore isn't plentiful enough to make the film a hit, like BRAINDEAD, yet despite all this the film never becomes an all out comedy. Perhaps if your idea of a good time is watching an actress run around in a PVC suit, then this film is for you, but otherwise give it a miss. I'm sure there are more important things to do. The only good thing about this film? I only had to pay a couple of quid for it, in the January sales.