Coons! Night Bandits of the Night is a damned silly movie. It's cheap, it's ugly looking, it's sophomoric and tasteless, and very much has the feel of a guy who got his friends together and was like "hey! Let's make a movie!" But the funny thing? Coons! is actually pretty good. Or at least, it's funny enough to be good. Considering how many jokes are in the film, the hit-miss ratio is incredibly good. (Amazon has it listed as a spoof - and the sheer number of jokes would support that claim. Although horror-comedy was my initial reaction.)
The catch? If it's not your style of comedy, it's likely to be insufferable. The characters overact about as loudly as possible, and seem to have the craziest/fakest costumes/looks that they could (cheaply) get away with. Facial hair in particular. Many actors play multiple roles, so the bad costumes (kind of) hide that. And the raccoons are very clearly inanimate and taxidermied - there is no attempt to fake anything else. But Coons! is the sort of movie that uses it's cheapness as a joke. And yeah, hearing that makes me shudder a bit, as most movies that try to do so are really quite bad. But every once and a while it works - and it does here. It's just fun, plain and simple. But I concede that it's not for everyone.
I would point out here that this is a film that is distributed by Troma (although produced independently I'd guess), and while the humor is occasionally sophomoric and tasteless, it's not nearly as bad as it could be. The overall goofy vibe of the thing sort of tempers anything that could be too offensive. It's just so silly that it's hard to take seriously. Although I would say that the lispy ultra gay character is a bit cringeworthy. I know it's only 10 years old, but I don't think this would fly today. He kind of feels like he's out of a gay minstrel show.
The story? (If you're into that sort of thing.) Killer Raccoons, man. A group of "teens" are at a campsite - hero and his friend, a love interest and her friend, three dudebros, and a couple of Jesus Freaks. (Why they are all there together is never really addressed.) We spend the bulk of our time with these kids, but there is also an "adult" contingent to the film - even if they are the same actors. The forest ranger, a doctor, a reverend, a hillbilly, and a mega-hillbilly. But it's wise to have such a huge cast of characters - you never have time to get too sick of any one of them. And they are all so broadly written/acted that you *couldn't* spend much time with them - they are caricatures, plain and simple. But still, they are funny caricatures. There's also a hippie with a Ridiculous fake beard and his Arab friend named Al Jazeera. (That should give you a good idea of where the comedy is at in Coons!) They all fight killer raccoons.
I realize that is less of a story and more just a list of characters, but the story here just exists to give these guys a reason to act like goofs. I don't want to try explaining the jokes - as ridiculous as they are in the movie, they will seem even stupider in writing. But I'll be damned if there isn't some truly funny stuff in here. Not always clever, but just funny. And yeah, that's objective. But I think you probably already know - even just from the title - if this sort of thing is up your alley or not. If you think it might be, watch 10 minutes. You'll know pretty quick if it's working for you or not.
Overall, I really liked it. As long as you can accept a very cheap looking movie (It cost $5,000 to make and looks it) with a hearty serving of ridiculousness, Coons! Night Bandits of the Night is worth checking out.
I would recommend this film.
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