Dr. Giggles

1992 / Dir. Manny Coto / Written by Manny Coto and Graeme Whifler / Starring Larry Drake, Holly Marie Combs, Ciff De Young, and Max Anderson

Just glancing at the title, you might suspect that your worst nightmare about a cross between a diabolical doctor and a demented circus clown has come true. You are not that far off; this doctor is hell-bent on performing unnecessary and deadly (but that’s the point) procedures on his “patients,” all the while giggling like a maniac and dropping KILLER one-liners (“if you think that's bad, wait until you get my bill”). This campy little film is truly an overlooked classic of the slasher variety, just as the genre was winding down from its 1980s heyday. With imaginative kills such as suffocation by a giant band-aid, an overzealous stomach pumping, and a large thermometer inserted too far in the victim’s mouth (*shudder*), Dr. Giggles has some genuinely cringe-worthy yet creative moments. The villain is Dr. “Giggles” Rendell, who as a boy lost his mother to congenital heart failure, goes insane, and escapes the asylum years later to embark on a spree to rid his hometown of their health and lifestyle “illnesses” – unprotected sex, bad diet, etc. He then meets teenaged Jennifer, a girl afflicted with same poor ticker that his mother died from. In a twisted attempt to avenge his mother’s untimely death, Dr. Giggles stalks and kidnaps Jennifer to give her the heart transplant his poor mama never received. Sweet, no? Following a poignant turn as a mentally handicapped office assistant in the hit TV series L.A. Law, Larry Drake is terrific as Dr. “Giggles” Rendell, taking obvious maniacal glee in the horrors perpetrated on his small town while still remaining oddly sympathetic. With well-paced scares and moments that seriously merit some eye-covering – the scene that describes how he escaped his house as a boy still unnerves me – Dr. Giggles is nonetheless a very funny romp through the conventions of traditional slasher fare and a nice bookend to a genre that has since lost much of its bite. *** ½