Being a buff of the animal attack subgenre of horror that I am, I was curious to see trained raccoons assaulting man and woman alike. Ah, but there were no "true" raccoons - only stuffed raccoons - taxidermy frozen into position that was intended to provide scares or laughs. Neither emotion arose from me as I realized that the movie was less of an homage to animal attack flicks and more of a low-budget attempt at a Troma film (and yes, I realize that such a description sounds like an oxymororn given the crude nature of so many Troma pictures). A group of adolescents play both drunken teenagers and, with the help of fake mustaches and wigs, the townsfolk dedicated to stopping the raccoons.
I have no problem with multiple roles (hell, I thrive on it), but the entire cast body shouldn't be predominantly college-age - it makes the film's production seem more amateurish than it already is. The only player over thirty is Tom Lyons who plays the mayor and has about five minutes of screen time. You need to throw some seasoned actors in to balance out the cast. The film also relies heavily on the assumption that viewers the same age as the cast will find sex jokes and cussing funny (writer/director Travis Irvine tries to push the catchphrase "Well, shit snakes!" into the modern lexicon by injecting it into the dialog whenever possible). As a result, much of the humor falls flat, though there are moments I found myself laughing out loud. The opening theme song tickled me and I couldn't stop laughing for nearly two minutes after the mayor was introduced. In the scene, the phone rings at Ranger Danger's station (my, isn't that funny...) and the crew present hang up on the caller before finding out who it is. Cut to the mayor sitting behind his desk in his pajamas, where he puts the phone on the receiver, shrugs and starts building Duplos. Had there been more subtle, offbeat humor such as this, the film would have held my interest a lot more. But like most Troma films, there are dick jokes aplenty and not much else to offer the average viewer above the age of twelve.
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