Dr. giggles

It was Thoreau who once declared “I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life,” though  it’s doubtful he was referring to an evening spent watching Dr. Giggles when he said it. Anyone who was a comic book fan in 1992 likely has an indelible recollection of this movie - you couldn’t so much as leaf through a random issue without seeing full-page ads for it plastered from front to back (it was effective marketing, but more than a little misguided - courting a demographic whose attentions were easily won, but couldn’t actually see R-rated movies in the theater). The film had a marvelous collection of goofy taglines - “The doctor is in… SANE” and “The doctor is out… OF HIS MIND,” in addition to its signature nursery rhyme “If you’re from Moorehigh and you get sick, fall on your knees and pray you die quick.” Dr. Giggles remains a distinct oddity - one of those movies that almost everyone knows, but few have actually seen.​

Which begs the question… is it any good? Dr. Giggles emerged from the heart of that aggressively peculiar era of early-90s horror that spawned the likes of The Lawnmower Man, Brainscan, Body Parts, Candyman, Innocent Blood, Man’s Best Friend, and The People Under the Stairs - generally regarded as a scattershot nadir for the genre, but one that also displayed a rather inimitable flair for warped creativity. Larry Drake - at a career apex after winning multiple Emmys for LA Law and playing henchman Durant in Sam Raimi’s Darkman - inhabits the title character and he was a stellar casting choice. With his fleshy, Muppet-like features and ham hock-sized frame, he stands out as an amusingly inimitable slasher presence via his singular portrayal of Dr. Evan Rendell… who escapes from a mental asylum and returns to the town of Moorehigh, where his father was once a respected family physician - until his wife took ill and he completely lost his marbles (and absorbed his own son into his madness - folie à deux). Setting up shop in his family’s long abandoned mansion/clinic, Rendell - who, true to his nickname, is prone to fits of grotesque, high-pitched laughter - begins killing indiscriminately, peppering his murders with groan-inducing medical zingers such as “If you think that’s bad, wait until you get my bill”… until his attention is drawn towards the teenage Jennifer (an extremely young, pre-Charmed Holly Marie Combs), and he becomes fixated on “correcting” her heart defect. 

Dr. Giggles rates as a mostly serviceable horror/black comedy, which flashes the occasional burst of morbid wit (one victim is smothered by a comically oversized bandage; another’s ice cream binge leads to a graphic encounter with a liposuction pump). But the film grinds through its 95-minute runtime like a dull chainsaw operating at a single speed… its narrative momentum is more akin to the sluggishly steady blip of a cardiac monitor. Director Manny Coto (probably better known as a writer on shows such as Enterprise, Dexter, and American Horror Story, though he did helm the Dolph Lundgren pic Cover-Up, for what that’s worth) has a few worthwhile tricks up his sleeve (he directs the snot out of the sequence in the carnival funhouse, which is ripe with visual pizzazz), but they only go so far… the movie has a certain kooky 90s grandeur, but it only hints at the sort of unbridled dementedness that was truly required (one scene in particular arguably achieves it - if you’ve seen the film, you probably know which one). Combs is fresh-faced, but has little screen presence (and almost feels like she’s there under duress). The movie could have used an actress more capable of going toe-to-toe with Drake, who decimates the rest of the cast (both literally and figuratively). Whenever he's not on-screen, the movie flounders. Still, whatever its shortcomings, Dr. Giggles is a name that continues to resonate in horror circles. Put some respect on it.