Parts of the Family (2003)

The film was still a fun one that will make you laugh and have you leaving the theater feeling like you just stole something valuable and got away with it.

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

PARTS OF THE FAMILY is a Belgian horror flick made on a very low budget. The plot twists and turns are over-obvious and the story is simplistic, beginning with a massacre before moving on to a hostage situation with a twist or two. It's basically an exercise in grubby gore, with a big set-piece involving gut-munching which is sure to delight horror fans. The rest is trashy in the extreme, featuring an unconvincing lead actress and a cheap filming style which means it's never disturbing despite the content. I have to admit that the bandaged zombies do look pretty cool, however.

Parts of the Family is set in Belgium where a bank robber named Jason Goodis has just killed three people & is on the run from the police, he takes an attractive young lady named Ella (Cecilia Bergqvist) hostage at gunpoint. Goodis forces Ella into her house as the police helplessly watch on, Goodis demands that he has a getaway car with $1,000,000 stuffed in the boot or Ella dies. Head cop Carl Ressler (Lloyd Kaufman) agrees to his demands but says it will take time to arrange. Goodis has some time to kill but Ella obviously doesn't want to spend it with him so tries to escape & gets a nail in her foot for her troubles, as the time passes they begin to talk to each other & it soon emerges that Ella isn't exactly whiter than white herself. In fact it turns out that she used to be the housekeeper for the family that lived in the house & she ended up killing them all, bringing them back to life as flesh eating zombies who she now feeds men that she lures back to the house. All of a sudden Goodis doesn't feel quite so secure or in control as the flesh eating living dead begin to rise once more...This American Belgium co-production was financed by Troma studios & in it's original form was directed by Leon Paul De Bruyn, unfortunately when Troma saw it they choked on their French Fries as it was so terrible so some new footage was shot by Lloyd Kaufman & Gabriel Friedman & Parts of the Family was re edited using these newly shot scenes. Troma has since released a DVD which contains both versions & I should say at this point that I will be commenting on the original untampered cut that actually runs for a few minutes longer than Troma's re edit so I'm assuming while they added footage they also removed a fair amount. Got that? Still with me? Good. For all it's faults & believe me Parts of the Family has plenty of them I actually thought it was quite good fun in a crap sort of way, if that makes sense. The film is split into two, the first half is a standard hostage thriller while the second half turns into an all out zombie film. I thought it moved along at a fair pace & wasn't as boring as most of the crap Troma produce, there wasn't any childish humour in this edit either so forget about any fart, snot, pee, disabled or racist jokes & gags. The story makes no sense, it doesn't say how people come back to life & if this film is anything to go by the police in Belgium are the worst in the world but on a basic level it entertained me.Director Bryun doesn't do anything special & some of the film-making decisions are questionable to say the least. Why dress the zombies up to look like mummies? One of the reasons I liked Parts of the Family was Bergqvist who plays Ella, she is one hot babe who gets her breasts out at regular intervals & at the end turns into some kick-ass zombie killer who uses drills, acid, hacksaws & poles to dispose of the rotten zombies. There's a fair amount of gore, there's some graphic cannibalism, eyes are poked out, a high heeled shoe is shoved into someone's eye, faces are burned, brains are exposed & crushed under Ella's boots, drills in heads, someone slashes their wrist in graphic close-up, lots of blood & guts, axe's stuck in people & a cool gore scene in which someone falls back onto a spike which sticks through their throat & fountains of blood spurt of of the wound as a result.I'm pretty sure the budget must have been low, it's not that well made & the special effects vary from OK to very poor. The acting isn't up to much but I thought Bergqvist did alright & she is the single most watchable aspect of Parts of the Family, she's hot looking & I loved it when she developed a real attitude.Parts of the Family has lots of things against it, it''s poorly made, silly, has a largely unexplained story & it doesn't know what sort of film it wants to be. Having said that I thought it was watchable, there's some OK gore, Bergqvist is easy on the eye & great to watch violently killing zombies & it's nowhere near as bad, stupid or juvenile as most Troma films are. I still can't really recommend it to the average film-goer though so I won't.

This is Troma film-making at his purest: an amateurish splatter-movie with an ultra-thin and ridiculous storyline but with twisted characters and nasty make-up effects everywhere. When watching "Parts of the Family", you pretty much get the idea that this was filmed without a script (coincidentally or not, nobody actually is credited as the writer) and the absurd plot-twists seem to be improved on the set. The movie opens with a bank robber who flees from the police. The chase ends in front of an old mansion where he takes a yummy young girl hostage and entrenches himself in the house. The hostage turns out crazier than the robber as flashbacks illustrate that she once was the mansion's housekeeper who butchered the entire family that lived there. Things get even more messed up near the end, when zombies start to appear from the cellar and the girl transforms into a blood-drinking, corpse-licking witch. "Parts of the Family" was entirely made by Troma's loyal Belgian department that previously delivered "Rabbit Grannies" (a guilty pleasure of mine) and "Maniac Nurses". The film is not dubbed and all the Belgian actors speak their lines in English. They do a reasonably good job although you can clearly hear that English isn't their native tongue. Especially in the second half, the gore and sleaze is really outrageous! Zombies (wrapped up like mummies) break out and still their hunger on the police forces that surrounded the house. The legendary Lloyd "Keeper of Crap" Kaufman has a supportive role as police commissioner and he too has his eyeballs ripped out by severely decomposing zombies! I bet his fan – and enemies – will love to see this happen. Overall, this isn't exactly a film you HAVE TO see before you die but it's good entertainment. Definitely better than "Maniac Nurses".

I bought this movie direct from Troma at a convention, I'd wanted to see it since Troma first ran previews on their dvds for it years ago. It has taken a while to come out, and was available at this convention, but still not released to regular outlets. Lloyd Kaufman's appearance in it made it even better. The DVD contains two different versions of the movie by two different director. I just watched the "original" version and have yet to watch the "tromatic" version, so maybe I'll comment again after that. I have 7 other Troma movies to watch though from that convention. I'd recommend this one though, especially if you are familiar with Troma releases. Otherwise, what are you waiting for? Get familiar. I'd suggest starting with Tromeo and Juliet, The Toxic Anvenger (parts I and IV), and Sgt. Kabukiman NYPD, those are all Troma in-house productions though, where Parts of the Family is simply distributed by them. As far as distributions, I'd say check out Cannibal: The Musical.