Grotesque (1988 film)

Grotesque
DVD cover
Directed by	Joe Tornatore
Produced by	Mike Lane Chuck Morrell
Written by	Joe Tornatore
Screenplay by	Mikel Angel
Starring	Linda Blair Tab Hunter Donna Wilkes Brad Wilson Nels Van Patton Charles Dierkop Luana Patten Robert Z'Dar
Production company	United Filmmakers
Release date	1988
Running time	89 min.
Country	United States
Language	English

Grotesque is a 1988 horror film that was directed by Joe Tornatore. Linda Blair, who previously starred in The Exorcist, starred in the film and was the associate producer. It was filmed at Big Bear Lake.

During Lisa (Linda Blair) and her friend Kathy's (Donna Wilkes) vacation at her parents home in the snowy mountains, a group of punks break in to rob them. The gang murder the family until only Lisa is left alive. Lisa's adopted brother Patrick (Bob Apiza), a mutant hunchback who was hidden away, attacks the gang until he is killed by the police which results in his father Rod (Tab Hunter), a plastic surgeon, seeking revenge on the final two gang members.

Joe Corey, of Inside Pulse, wrote, "The movie gets weird with a rather arty finale about cinema and reality. This isn’t so much Grotesque as Perplexed". Stuart Galbraith IV, writing for DVD Talk, said that "the picture is a time-wasting jumble of half-baked ideas, overcooked performances (the actors playing punks are ridiculously overwrought throughout), and herky-jerky pacing".

Paul Pritchard, of DVD Verdict, wrote that "Grotesque makes yet another shift as it becomes an early entry into the torture porn genre, before ending in total farce, as it makes one final genre shift into comedy". A review in VideoHound's Cult Flicks & Trash Pics said that the film is "played too straight to be funny and too badly to be shocking".

Grotesque was released in a DVD set with three other low-budget films - Lady Frankenstein, The Velvet Vampire, and Time Walker. While the other films in the set have special features, this film does not. It is the only film in the set that is full frame, which a reviewer for DVD Talk said that it "appears to be an ancient video transfer, one that might even pre-date the dawn of DVD".