Coons! Night of the Bandits of the Night (2003)

COONS! NIGHT OF HE BANDITS OF THE NIGHT

WRITER: Travis Irvine

DIRECTOR: Travis Irvine

STARRING: Brian Kamerer as Ranger Danger/Greg

Nick Maier as Jones/Rex

Zach Riedmaier as Dr. Billington/Clayton

John Sarvas as Store Owner/Jon

Colin Scianamblo as Zach/Reverend Pookie

Dan Velez as Agent Charlesworth/Zane

Tom Lyons as The Mayor

Lehr Beidelschies as Ty

QUICK CUT: A young man ventures into the forest for a camping trip, during which he finally becomes a man.

THE MORGUE

Ty - A happy go lucky kid who is going camping for the first time, gonna get laid for the first time, gonna get shit on his face for the first time, and murder a raccoon for the first time.

Ranger Rick - The head ranger at the Raccoon Creek campground. He’s the man in charge, but he’s very put upon, and his job is at risk as he tries to wrangle his deputies and the kids and everyone else.

Tuck - The local hippie, stoned out of his gourd, and knows more than most.

This is the bandits of the night, the night, oh yeah

TRISK ANALYSIS: Welcome back, Triskelions! Our exploration of raccoon horror movies continues with Coons! Night of the Bandits of the Night! Yes, Coons! I...oh man. I yeah. I know. I've been cringing over this title for a few weeks now. Please don't be racist, please don't be racist, please just be stupid.

The movie opens up on a couple walking through the woods, and the lady is having an 'awesome' night, playing up the blonde airhead stereotype, and her date says it could be even more awesomer if she shows him her boobies.

Ah good, we're going for "stupid". Whew.

But then things are interrupted when the titular raccoons show up and kill both of them, but not before removing the girl's boobs, and tossing them in front of the guy, to which he declares that is sophomoric! That is tasteless!! Dude, you are in a Troma film.

Well you said you wanted to see her boobs.

We then head to the local campgrounds where we'll be spending the movie, and the two main rangers. Head Ranger Rick Danger - hah - and the very swishily gay Shane. We also meet the local hippie stoner who discovers the dead bodies in the woods, and lets the rangers know what's up.

Rick is busy duct taping surveillance cameras up in the woods to catch kids drinking, when the mayor calls to set up some of the campers coming to the park.

So Rick gets called to the emergency station, shown the boobs again, and the dude is Not Dead Yet, but he's close. And he has fecal matter in his mouth. Ew.

With a mustache like that, his dad must be the ranger in Winterbeast.

The hippie Tuck knows raccoons did it, and the supposed park ranger has the sheer gall to say "raccoons are cute! They're not dangerous!" Yeah, I am proving that wrong this year.

We next meet all kinds of campers coming in who will be dead shortly, so whatever. The only one of note is Ty and the girl he meets Janine.

Ranger Rick gives his safety speech, and introduces a band, and we get down to some regular campground activities.

Which includes drinking, which is verboten on the campgrounds. Rick shows up to interrupt the party, and zeros in on the one irresponsibly drunk frat boy, tases him, and drags him off to a holding cell to dry out.

Meanwhile, the kid who ate shit is up and about and YAY ZOMBIES. Kinda. But unfortunately, they also don't really do shit with it. This really should’ve been more a threat, having the ringworm infested shit causing rage zombies.

While the doctor and Rick take care of that, the drunk kid gets attacked by a raccoon and murdered in his cell.

The news media shows up to spread panic, and a bunch of experts also arrive so they can plan what to do. And they all point out that Ranger Shane told them to "enter through the rear". Snort.

So the campers here the news that raccoons are to blame, and head to the guns and beer and fireworks store to arm up.

All right, I need to know where each and every one of you were on January 6th.

While the group of experts, and Tuck, continue to strategerize, the angry mob gets angrier, as they somehow found a bunch of tiki torches, and have started setting fire to pictures of raccoons.

And it is a short hop from there for them all to start chanting "Kill the coons! Kill the coons!"

So. I guess we're going with racism after all. Ohno.

And look, I'm gonna address this right here. It's...not as bad as it seems. You kinda expected this with the title. And it is done *purely* for laughs. It's not trying to be Actual Racist. I think. And they hang a giant lantern on it, knowing full well what they are doing, when a black man stumbles upon the mob and is *Absolutely Mortified*. It's more of a knowing nod to what they know the title sounds like, and playing with it, than actual malicious intent. That does not make it any less comfortable.

But back to the stupid. There's a puppet show going on, with raccoon puppets, and because angry mob, both of the puppets get shot. All while the local gun nut hunter is trying to train everyone about gun safety and hunting And then a movie censor shows up to decry showing violence to children, and he gets shot. Aaand the movie wins me back.

While the disease expert does his thing and explains raccoon behaviour, two of the frat boys take a shit in the woods. Which ends up with one of them dead.

Ty is out wandering the woods, and runs into one of the racoons. He drops his gun, shooting it accidentally on purpose, and is haled as a hero for killing the varmint responsible!

Unfortunately, we are not even halfway through this raccoon turd of a movie, and it’s not over yet.

While the kids party, and the experts chill in the mayor's hot tub, the raccoons attack, and kill Janine while she's in the middle of having sex with Ty. The raccoons vollow that up by then killing damned near everyone else.

They also take out the doctor, as well as the dude at the Bad Decisions Supply Store, before Ranger Rick notices something on his surveillance cameras. Hey, they are useful!

Meanwhile, Ty finally loses his blindfold, realises he's been fucking a dead girl, and runs from the army of raccoons. He quickly runs into Tuck who takes him to his shack, so they can figure out what to do next, with his friend Al…Jazeera. *heavy sigh*

We learn that this is a regular event Al and Tuck have been training for, since the raccoons come around with murderous intent every few decades or so. Look, they're not *cicadas* they're bloody raccoons!

The raccoons surround Tuck's shack, keeping them pinned down. Al gets the walkie talkie working, and calls Ranger Rick and friends to come rescue them. Once they do that, they plan to raid the den and blow it to hell with fireworks.

So Rick assembles a new mob to fight their way through the raccoons, while the CDC doctor and raccoon specialist heads off to grab his plane, and dust the area with "anti disease gas".

Unfortunately, the raccoons are armed and fight back. But while they're all distracted by the firefight, Ty makes a break for it to find the raccoon den..

He leaves the other two behind, so they can do backup once he finds the den. Unfortunately, they're surrounded again once the mob is taken care of.

But fortunately, Shane shows up with a portable radio, blasting a local talk radio channel. This is the one thing that makes the raccoons run away, and I can relate. That shit sends me a-scurryin' too.

So they enter the den to place the explosives, and stumble upon ancient shrines to old raccoon gods. Because sure, why not.

But just as they're ready to light this mother crabber, they realise they have no matches. And even worse, the radio's batteries are starting to die.

The raccoons surround them, and Ty, Al, and Shane all get down for some Mortal Koonbat and kick some ass. It's delightfully ridiculous.

Things are looking bleak as more and more raccoons show up, but Tuck, struggling to stay alive, shows up to buy them some time. And he has matches.

And so our survivors ride off into the explosive fireworks display hailing their victory, and we are gonna stop here and ignore the racism of Al Jazeera being arrested because Middle Eastern and explosives.

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: Not too bad, since it came out in the early 2000s.

Audio: Sounds fine.

Sound Bite: "These backwoods heathens sure could use some bibling!"

Body Count: This one definitely delivers a large pile of bodies.

1 - Under 90 seconds, and Melissa gets raccooned.

2 - Zane the drunk kids get raccooned.

3 - Censor gets shot

4 - One of the frat boys gets killed taking a dump

5 - The doctor gets attacked

6 - And then the guy at the packy

7 - And then the girl

8 - One of the religious campers gets killed

9 - Then the last frat boy

10 - And another religious camper

11 - Ty's friend Zack attacked

12 - You know what? Just…this happened.

13 - One of the hunters gets jumped

14 - And another

15 - A third gets shot

16 - And another

17 - And another

18 - And another censor gets shot by raccoons

19 - The gun nut gets attacked

20 - The bible thumper gets attacked next.

21 - Doctor's plane goes down.

22 - Ranger Rick gets gutted by the queen raccoon.

23 - Tuck blows himself up to save the day

Best Corpse: I am just gonna give this whole thing to the campsite massacre.

Blood Type - C: For so much death, there’s not a lot of blood. There’s a bit, but I know they could’ve had more.

Sex Appeal: Do fake boobs count? or is that just sophomoric and tasteless?

Drink Up! “An electric shock you can't fuck with!"

Movie Review: There’s potential here. I wish it was less cringey with the “Kill the coons!” chanting moment But it’s got a solid story, they are VERY clearly having fun, and that carries a lot of the movie. And this movie is FUNNY. When a joke lands, it really lands. It’s gleeful in its ridiculousness, and I’m here for that. It’s not entirely to my taste, tries too hard at times, and when the jokes don’t work, it’s really off putting. But it’s fun, and if they tightened up some of the slower parts, it would be all right. Two out of five cackling raccoons.

Entertainment Value: Like I said, there are quite a few great lines dropped in this movie. And when it works, it works. But when it doesn’t, it’s so so cringey. I could’ve done without Shane being THAT gay. I give it a bit of a pass because this was still the norm more often than not in 2000. But it does not age well. There’s potential, and I wish it lived up to it. Three out of five fake mustaches.