Little Corey Gorey — Little Corey Gorey(DVD)

From the early 1990’s the rather neatly titled Little Corey Gorey is a dark teen comedy-drama- come-splattered edged horror film. For many years the picture has been available as only a heavily censored DVD- with the only way to see the movie in its completely uncut form being via the director's website. Here we have a fully uncut DVD from the fine folks at SRS Cinema, with director's commentary & make-of.

Little Corey Gorey was filmed in the year 1989 but wasn’t released until 1993. It was directed and produced by Bill Morroni.  He has only three other directors' credits to his name- and these all appear in the late 2000s to early 2010s- these went from uncover cop drama Safe House, kidnap crime comedy Roll Call, and family drama Ol’ School. Considering Little Corey Gorey is the director's first feature- it's a competently filmed, acted and executed debut film.

It opens with Gorey & his family moving into their new house. The family takes in junk food eating ‘n’ beer swigging mid aged Betty (Pat Gallagher),  brash and abusive 20-something Biff(Greg Sachs), and teen high school Gorey(Todd Fortune). Betty & Biff are his stepmother & brother, as his dad died in a car crash- he was also in the car, hench he has nasty scars on his face. Gorey is physically abused and bullied by the pair- and when we see him talking back to his mother, he’s strung up by a belt nose and cans thrown at his feet just touching the floor body, as the pair laugh at him. He’s given a small box room/ cupboard in the new house- and is basically treated like a slave- cooking, cleaning, and doing anything else the pair requests.

We see him starting his first day at his new school, where he meets Jackie(Brenda Pope) who is a few years above him. It’s love at first sight, he finds out she’s a fan of Ozzy Osbourn- as he is too… and The Prince Of Darkness is coming to town, so he goes and buys a ticket for them both- break into her house, and leaving her ticket on her bed. He takes his own back home, hiding it under his mattress.  

The night of the Ozzy show Biff goes sniffing around his stepbrother's room, finds the ticket- and goes to the show himself. Gorey, after getting dressed for the show- finds the ticket gone- goes up to his stepbrother's room, rages a bit- then falls asleep. Later when Biff comes back from seeing Ozzy, boasting he got lucky with Jackie, taking her cherry & more besides. From here the normally mild-mannered and easily pushed around Gorey snaps- and during the flight between the stepbrothers, Biff’s arm is sliced off. And in panic he ties up his stepmother on the sofa, saws up, then puts Biff’s limbs & head in the freezer.

From here Jackie lands up staying at Gorey, his stepbrother drug dealer turns up, and the teen tries to stop anyone from finding out about his tied-up step mum & Biff on ice. Along the film's lengthy we get a few more attacks/ splats of gore- like Gorey grinding up a human to feed his stepmom, attacks on others & more body sawing. The film largely plays like a coal-black, at times wacky comedy-drama- when the horror elements appear they are done well/competently enough- with the practical effects being impressive, though the film is certainly not the all-out blood ‘n’ splatter fest it's title suggests.

Acting wise most of the cast is fairly good-to-ok for low-budget horror fare- yes, we get some hamming up/overacting in places- but it’s never ineffective, and it all plays well in the whole trashy/ black comedy feel of the film. So, while I was expecting a tad more gruel and nastiness, I was entertained by what  Little Corey Gorey had to offer- and it really is a pity Morroni didn’t get to make more films in the 90s.

 

The print looks large good clean and bright on the region-free DVD. Extra wise we get a director’s commentary- this is a down-to-earth, informative, and often amusing track. He starts off talking about how he changed the original credits, as they looked cheap. He talks about shooting in the main house in the film, and general shot set-up. He discusses the film's budget, and how this was broken down. We find out there were around eight or so hours of outtakes- which he still has.  How they managed to get use of the school in the film, as one of the supporting actors' normal jobs was working there. He talks about the hair metal band in the film Lust- whose songs appear throughout the film, and when they tried to make a music video & nearly caused a serious fire. He discusses not having insurance on the shoot, and near accidents on set.  He points out his short cameo in the film, and talks about smaller roles in the film which were often played by family & friends. Later on, he discusses hiring a rat from a pet shop for a few scenes,  and how lead actor Brenda Pope worked as a double on the popular US teen TV drama 90210.  He talks about what some of the actors are doing now- for example the male lead is now a children's acting agent in South Carolina. A very worthwhile director's track, which is most definitely worth a play. We get a Making Of Doc( one hour & seventeen minutes), and this is very in-depth/thorough- with the director talking through everything from the origin of the film's title, to the actors and crew. Going on to talk about the cameras and set-up he had for the film, its production, when it came out, etc. A really excellent doc- which really goes beyond just the simple 'Making of' title.

 

All in all, Little Corey Gorey is an entertaining darkly hued teen comedy-drama, with some effective splattered-edged horror elements. And this release on SRS Cinema really is excellent- with a good bold print, and most worth commentary & making-of doc.