TIKI [2006]

 IF YOU CROSS "CARRIE" WITH THE FINAL SEGMENT OF "TRILOGY OF TERROR", WHADDAYA GET?  That's right.  But first add in a micro-budget and some amateur acting and you have the Ron Ford opus:  TIKI!  This is not altogether a bad thing.  OK, the acting is pretty terrible.  But the little Tiki guy is so much fun; it gibbers constantly in a voice similar to Latka on helium and is obviously held by someone directly underneath the camera's field of vision and made to scamper about the place.  This, my friends, is hilarious and super-cute and a big plus in my book!  Come on, what exactly were you expecting when you went into this movie?!?!?  

The plot goes something like this:  Amy leaves her Hawaiian Islands home to study drama at a mainland college.  When she gets there, she is immediately bullied by a bunch of snotty, stuck-up girls (who would do this in high school but it's not really something that happens in college, I don't think).  They're drama professor Mark (DON'T call him Mr. Bernardi!!!!!) is one of those footloose and fancy free professors that likes everything informal; so informal, in fact, that he walks in on Amy while she's topless changing for her role as Eliza Doolittle in PYGMALION.  Amy has kinda a thing for ole Mark so she first covers herself but quickly drops her hands and gives him a full view.  Amy later receives a letter headed with "YOU ROCK!" in capital letters that apparently is from Mark inviting Amy to stop on by his house that night.  She does so, dressed only in rather slutty undergarments only to find the invitation was not from Mark but a joke played by the snotty girls! Amy runs from the house where all the bullies are lined up to laugh at her.  Amy suddenly has some sort of seizure and is rushed to the hospital in a coma.  Amy's Aunt Maylea flies to her niece's side and learns what happened.  Auntie is a firm believer and practitioner in the "old religion" (kinda vaguely defined here) and instills the comatose Amy's spirit into a small wooden Tiki idol which gains revenge on everyone responsible for the prank in some nicely bloody ways.  

The major fault with the film I think is the running time; again, with a movie like this, brevity is everything.  About half of everything before the Tiki starts offing people could be cut with no loss to the film and, due to the quality of the acting, would be a definite plus.  Despite this, director Ron Ford does keep a light touch with slight humourous bits sprinkled throughout.  The amateur cast give it their all, such as that is, and practically the only cast member who has more than this one film as a credit is Wes Deitrick as the slightly gross Mark Bernardi and D.R. Anderson (THE WARD) as one of the bonehead boyfriends.  This is another one I can't really recommend unless you are very tolerant for all the needless dialogue scenes in the first half of the movie.  But if you're so inclined, that wacky little Tiki and his bloody kills almost make up for it.