The early 1990's had to be a weird time for the slasher movie. After the influx of titles in the wake of the success of Friday the 13th in the early 80's, and subsequent lack of interest as the decade came to a close due to oversaturation, the slice 'n' dice sub-genre took a clue from later A Nightmare on Elm Street entries (and, to a lesser extent, Child's Play) and decided to mix comedy with their killings. Dr. Giggles is one of the earlier examples of this and, if you're in the right frame of mind, it's a pretty entertaining and completely goofy effort that I found actually plays better today than it did when I first saw it back in 1993.

Larry Drake, who made an impression playing the mentally handicapped Benny in weekly television drama "L.A. Law" and as baddie Durant in Sam Raimi's Darkman, is the manical, constantly giggling doctor Evan Rendell who, in the films opening scene, escapes from the asylum in a hail of killing and one-liners. It's here that director/co-writer Manny Coto lets you know his full intentions: to make a campy, quickly paced popcorn horror flick.

Meanwhile, high schooler Jen (Holly Marie Combs) has the start of her summer vacation ruined by the fact she has to wear a heart monitor but things will soon get even worse for her when a group of her friends decide to clown around in the old Rendell house, which has become a sort of urban legend thanks to Evan's father being exposed as a serial killer, little realizing that our good doctor has returned home and is seeking revenge on the townsfolk since he blames them for his father's death.

The remainder of Dr. Giggles' plot is on auto-pilot as the expected batch of people start getting killed off and Jen becomes the object of our doctor's affection thanks to the fact his mother also had a heart condition on the way to a pretty over-the-top finale set back at Dr. Rendell's secret operating room where he intends to give Jen the heart transplant he was never able to give his mom.

To say that you're not supposed to take one iota of this seriously would be an understatement. Between Drake's completely exaggerated performance, murder scenes being performed with modified surgical tools (my favourite being the liposuction tube with deadly blades inside it), and a constant stream of puns right up to the final shot; it's pretty hard to even attempt to look at this as a movie that's out to scare or disturb you. Coto and company just want you to have fun with it and despite liberal copying from the Elm Street movies, like the fact our killer has a child's sing-song about him and a pretty cool flashback scene that reminded me of Freddy's origins, it's watchable just to see how many slasher movie conventions they can nudge in the ribs.

While Drake chews up as much scenery as possible, Combs doesn't fare too badly as our put-upon heroine and is pretty cute in the lead and it's not that difficult to see how she went on to a consistent career on such television shows as "Picket Fences" and "Charmed". It was also a lot of fun seeing Cliff De Young as Jen's father and it's too bad he's mostly appearing in guest shots on various series and co-starring in generic, and generally forgettable, low-budget films such as Gale Force and 2012: Doomsday.

When all is said and done, Dr. Giggles really isn't a bad way to waste an hour-and-a-half of your time. Drake's giggling does get to be a bit much eventually and there's not an original bone in the film's body but I found myself smiling more than once at the outright absurdity of it all and can now say that even though I didn't really like it all those years ago, I can now appreciate it for its preposterous charm. (Chris Hartley, 12/5/09)

Directed By: Manny Coto.
Written By: Manny Coto, Graeme Whifler.

Starring: Larry Drake, Holly Marie Combs, Glenn Quinn, Cliff De Young.

Picture Ratio: 1.85:1 Widescreen.

Picture Quality: While there are some scattered specks on the print and mild grain during a few of the darker scenes, the transfer here is pretty clean and sports solid colour.

Extras: There's absolutely nothing here, not even a trailer.

This is available either by itself or as part of the "Twisted Terror Collection" that includes five other Warner horror titles: Deadly Friend, Eyes of a Stranger, From Beyond the Grave, The Hand, and Someone's Watching Me.