In the early 1990s, producer Charles Band was friends with Richard and his brother Danny Elfman. Yes, that Danny Elfman. Richard kept bugging Band to let him direct a movie for Full Moon Pictures. He came up with the concept for Shrunken Heads as superhero-loving teens who die and become the heroes that they idolized. On paper, it looked morbid but doable and definitely in line with Full Moon’s usual fare. Richard swore that he would get Danny to score the movie. At the time, Full Moon had made a distribution deal with Paramount which generally meant straight-to-video. However, Paramount came to Band and offered to make Shrunken Heads the first Full Moon theatrical release due to Danny Elfman’s name being attached.
Predictably, Danny Elfman was busy with more important and more lucrative projects (probably Nightmare Before Christmas and Demon Knight) and so he only composed the main title theme. Charles Band’s brother/in-house composer Richard Band scored the rest of the movie. Paramount was still on board. Then came the screening for Paramount executives. It was only then that Band realized that the teenagers were cherubic 13-year-olds and having them slaughtered in the first third of the movie totally kills any universal appeal for the movie. Band likens it to murdering the main cast of Stranger Things after the first episode and then reanimating them. Traumatizing. In the end, Paramount passed on releasing the movie in theaters and Richard Elfman funded the LA theatrical release with his own money.
We begin the movie with vague chanting, a lot of smoke, and a vintage Danny Elfman track as the credits play. The picture coalesces eventually into a bubbling cauldron before we fade to a quiet street. We see Tommy Larson sweeping the floor of his family’s old-timey general store as his father tends to a customer. Tommy’s friend Bill Turner bursts through the door of the shop and tells him that Mr. Sumatra has the newest DC comics. On the way, they see a young kid riding his bike. This kid is accosted by some local greaser-style bullies called the Vipers led by Vinny. Tommy and Bill jump in to help the kid but the fight is actually broken up by a mechanic (?) who threatens the bullies with a wrench. Vinny’s girlfriend Sally has more sense and manages to convince Vinny to take his boys elsewhere.
Tommy and Bill help the poor asthmatic kid off the ground and he introduces himself as Freddie Thompson, a new arrival to the neighborhood. The three, bonded by having experienced the same bully, continue together to Mr. Sumatra’s newsstand. The boys introduce Freddie to Mr. Sumatra. They buy comics and jellybeans and the boys tell Freddie that Mr. Sumatra was a policeman in Haiti and that’s why he’s so intense/weird. Freddie is introduced to comic books but the trio are interrupted by more bullying by Vinny and his gang. Tommy stands up for his friends but Mr. Sumatra intimidates the gang into walking away. The boys talk to Mr. Sumatra and ask for advice on how to deal with the gangs since he was a cop. He says that he would have run surveillance on the gang to inform on them.
The next day, Sally visits the Larson’s shop to apologize to Tommy but she also defends his behavior as the product of a bad home. However, Tommy says that’s no excuse and expresses incredulity that Vinny is her boyfriend. He is an asshole. Sally storms off and as she walks down the street, Vinny pulls up his car to give her a ride. She refuses to get in the car or talk to him except to chide him for his behavior toward the boys. As she passes Mr. Sumatra, he asks her if the gang is bothering her and she says to leave it alone. Instead, Mr. Sumatra casts a spell on Vinny’s car which causes it to crash with no injuries.
At night, the three boys finish up a strategy session where they worry about reprisal from Vinny’s gang. When Bill and Freddie leave, Sally calls on Tommy. She climbs the fire escape to talk to him. Sally tells Tommy that she is done with Vinny and that she likes somebody else now. It’s Tommy. As Tommy kisses Sally, Bill and Freddie contact him over a walkie-talkie. They have spotted the Vipers pulling apart a car on the street. Tommy jumps into action to film the crime in action. Sally warns him against going against the gang but he goes and gets Vinny and the gang on videotape. After the theft of car parts, the cops roll up on the Vipers as they walk away from the crime scene. Tommy swoops in to snitch to the cops and the Vipers are arrested on the spot.
We cut to a warehouse presumably full of stolen goods run by Big Moe, the androgynous leader of crime in the area. Big Moe is approached by Vinny who laments that his boys were all arrested. Vinny relates what Tommy did but Big Moe berates Vinny for turning soft. She tells Vinny to bring the three boys to the warehouse the following night and gives Vinny three grand for bail money. The next morning, Vinny bails out his boys and they go and snatch the three boys off of the street. They are taken to see Big Moe who warns them to keep their mouths shut. Tommy says that Vinny and his gang deserve to be in a cell. Big Moe offers the boys a job but Tommy turns it down. The boys are tied up in a storeroom where they break free from being tied up. They witness Big Moe bribing the local cops. They find stubs for a numbers racket in the storeroom. They steal the stubs and escape through the air vents. This, of course, loses Big Moe a lot of money.
Big Moe goes to visit Vinny and tells him that the boys are Vinny’s problem. They direct Vinny to take the Vipers and gun down the three boys. In short order, Vinny and his boys catch the boys walking down the street with the stubs. They kill all three in cold blood, leaving them dead on the street. They retrieve the stubs and drive off. The whole neighborhood sees the aftermath of what went down. Vinny returns to Big Moe who congratulates him for doing so great. Vinny regrets having killed children which frightens Big Moe’s girl, Mitzi. Big Moe makes Vinny his right-hand man and in charge of collecting protection money.
Sally and Mr. Sumatra watch as the boys’ bodies are carried away. Sally tells Mr. Sumatra what happened and he comforts her as his gaze goes steely. We see the funeral where Mr. Sumatra pays his respects and offers condolences to Mr. Larson and Sally. In the night, Mr. Sumatra sneaks into the mortuary and steals the heads of the boys before they can be buried. In his cauldron, Sumatra performs vodoun magic.
Vinny confronts Sally on the street and offers condolences for Tommy. He acts like he had nothing to do with what happened to Tommy. Since nobody saw anything, nobody can prove anything. Vinny claims that he is going straight and going to night school. Mr. Sumatra passes them on the street and Vinny calls him a freak under his breath. Sally makes him apologize and he does. Sally is hurting but leaves the door open for a future with Vinny.
Mr. Sumatra returns to his apartment where he is boiling the heads of the boys. He puts a dead cat in the pot with them. He works into the night on the rituals and when he is done, the now-shrunken heads come to life. The boys are disoriented and frightened. It is very gross and the boys express that they would rather be dead. Mr. Sumatra tells them that they have magical powers now. All of them can fly, Tommy can emit bolts of electricity, Bill can drink blood, and Freddie has a retractable blade from his mouth.
One year later, we see that Vipers have full control of the neighborhood. The only one not paying protection money is Mr. Sumatra. Sumatra finally unleashes the shrunken heads on the neighborhood to fight crime. (Note: The movie is half over at this point) The boys kill two muggers ruthlessly. On the way back, Tommyhead decides to visit Sally and he floats through her open window. He sees that she has not gotten over him and he leaves troubled before she wakes up. The three heads are summoned back to Mr. Sumatra who congratulates them on their crime fighting. Back in the alley, the muggers they killed rise as zombies. We see them start to pick up trash in the alley as they fart.
We briefly see Sally watching the morning news where we find out that there is a sudden “illness” afflicting local criminals that includes a shuffling gate, a drop in blood pressure, and loss of bowel control. Vinny calls Sally to ask her on a date and she agrees. He has evidently convinced her of his sincerity to go straight. The problem is that he is calling her from Big Moe’s hideout. He is still lying to her. Vinny tells his boys to take care of Sumatra and get him in line. Vinny’s boys go to intimidate Mr. Sumatra into paying protection money. He intimidates them with magic and sends them running. He then sics the heads on them. The two gang members are murdered quickly and efficiently. They rise as zombies.
We briefly see Sally being pressured for sex by Vinny and when she delivers an ultimatum, he kicks her out of the car and she breaks up with him. Pissed off, Vinny goes to confront Sumatra. Sumatra calls Vinny “doomed one” and tells him that his friends are suffering in Hell. He points Vinny to the alleyway where his zombie friends are weeding the community garden in the middle of the night. They tell him that Mr. Sumatra wants to see him and he runs off scared.
Sally visits Tommy’s grave and apologizes for not telling him how she felt about him. She tells Tommy that she always loved him. Tommyhead swoops in and declares that he loves her too. When Sally rightfully freaks out, Tommy casts a spell that implants his own memories of the events after his death into her skull. She sees Vinny kill Tommy, the vodoun rituals, and the killings of the gang members. Tommy wants a last embrace so he slides up Sally’s shirt and bra and between her breasts before flying off.
Sally goes to Mr. Sumatra and reveals that she knows everything. Sumatra confirms everything and Sally lectures him for letting her date Vinny for a year without telling her that Vinny is a killer. She objects to the treatment of the three boys but Sumatra says that the boys are no longer human and are fueled by vengeance. Sally defies this and says that Tommy is still a good person. Tommy apologizes for disgusting her. She opens her shirt and lets him nuzzle her breasts. Mr. Sumatra leaves them to have their privacy. We thankfully do not see any more of that.
Vinny cowers in his apartment but the zombies come for him to take him to Sumatra. He fights them off and runs away. It is then that Vinny is finally confronted by the three heads who laugh at him as they repeat Mr. Sumatra’s invitation.
Mr. Sumatra and Sally are back at Sumatra’s apartment where she offers to help with the mission. He needs Sally’s help in a final spell. She agrees even though it means taking part in “capital punishment”.
Vinny reaches Big Moe and rants and raves about the shrunken heads and the zombies. Big Moe thinks Vinny is cracking up but Mr. Sumatra chooses that moment to enter, shooting a gang member point-blank in the head. He laughs as he unleashes the zombies and watches them beat the tar out of the criminals. Vinny begs Sally to call the undead off. When the heads go to attack Vinny, Mr. Sumatra reminds them that vengeance must occur at Sumatra’s apartment. That hesitation allows Big Moe to kidnap Sally and shoot Mr. Sumatra in the gut.
The zombies help Sumatra back into his car and they give chase. The heads assault Big Moe’s car with Vinny, Sally, and Mitzi inside. Big Moe is able to fight off two of the heads, shooting them, but Tommyhead crashes through the windshield and uses his lightning powers to incapacitate Vinny who was driving. The car crashes. In a standoff with Mr. Sumatra, Mitzi saves Sally from Big Moe. Mitzi is allowed to go free. Sally and Sumatra retrieve Billhead and Freddiehead. They will be revived.
In Mr. Sumatra’s condominium, Sumatra passes leadership of the heads to Sally who casts the revenge spell on Vinny and Big Moe as we cut away. We cut to Sally and Tommyhead looking lovingly at each other on the balcony before all three heads fly off into the city presumably to fight crime. In a post-credits scene, we see Mitzi out on a date where she happens upon a fully zombified Vinny and Big Moe cleaning up graffiti.
Random things I noticed after two viewings:
- There is a shower scene but it is a male that gets killed while naked
- Everybody is underage and doing a lot of problematic things.
- Mr. Sumatra asks 16-year-old Sally if her “maidenhead is still intact” then invites her into his bedroom to change clothes. Nobody thought this was wrong.
- Meg Foster plays Big Moe and is definitely revealed to be AFAB but seems to present as butch. She has a girlfriend and also flirts a bit with Vinny. Lowkey bisexual representation in 1994.
- It is not explained fully in the movie but Mr. Sumatra was part of the Tonton Macoute which is a paramilitary law enforcement agency answering directly to the president of Haiti. I won’t go into detail here but these were not good guys at all. They were scary as hell.
- I didn’t catch the post-credits scene at the first viewing. If you miss it, you never see what happens to Vinny and Big Moe after a lot of foreshadowing from Mr. Sumatra.
- There are a lot of what appears to be real tears from the youngest members of the cast which definitely feels like it goes against the light tone they were going for.
Wolf of Words 