Color, 1989, 95 mins. 45 secs. / 88 mins. 35 secs. / 84 mins. 31 secs. / 66 mins. 39 secs.
Directed by Emmanuel Kervyn
Starring Florine Elslande, Danielle Daven, Robert Du Bois, Catherine Aymerie, Caroline Braeckman, Richard Cotica
Vinegar Syndrome (Blu-ray) (US R0 HD) / WS (1.66:1) (16:9), Troma (Blu-ray & DVD) (US R0 NTSC), OMG Entertainment (Holland R2 PAL) / WS (2.35:1) (16:9), Laser Paradise (Germany R2 PAL), Shock (Holland R2 PAL)

If the young Peter Jackson and Walerian Borowczyk Rabid Granniesdecided to get drunk and do a bottom Rabid Granniesof the barrel demonic attack film with wretched dubbing, the end result would look a lot like Rabid Grannies, a trashy, gory 16mm epic that starts off slowly but escalates into a string of gory dismemberment gags. Here's the entire plot: a bunch of unpleasant relatives convene for a party at the home of two sweet old aunties. An evil old woman arrives at the gate and delivers a mysterious box, which the aunties promptly open. Aunties turn into bald, clawed demons, then run around and tear everyone to pieces as they try to hide in the house. The end.

Though hardly a great stylist, Belgian director Emmanuel Kervyn does a decent job of keeping things moving at a nice and bloody clip during the second half when the mayhem really kicks in. A make-or-break element for many is the headache-inducing dubbed British accents, a necessity since most of the French-speaking cast couldn't speak clear English and delivered their lines phonetically); couple that with the intentionally goofy, semi-comic script ("That's smashing!") and you get a truly surreal viewing experience

Unfortunately, the film's release history has been something of a mess with American distributor Troma circulating it in at least three different versions , none of them complete. Their VHS edition was almost completely bloodless, while the 2000 DVD release reinstated a little bit of the gore. However, it's still far less complete than the edition on Danish video (circulated on the U.S. video underground), which clocked in at 81 minutes rather than the 89 of the DVD thanks Rabid Granniesto the vagaries of SECAM conversion. However, most of the gore is included on the DVD -- as a Rabid Granniesseparate reel of splattery outtakes with lots of jumps and splices. This long, long sampler of limb-tearing mayhem includes most of the deleted footage, though for some reason the last shot of the film is still trimmed down to omit the sound of an arm being torn off. Other DVD extras include an incomprehensible commentary by Kervyn (though it does contain some nice nuggets of trivia if you pay attention), as well as a funny outtake reel of flubs and gags. To round things off, you get the usual Troma tour and T.I.T. test, as well as a dumb interview spoof with a "real rabid granny."

The full-strength (but not technically uncut) 84-minute version in PAL time first appeared in Germany as part of the "Red Edition" series - alas, without an English language option - and in English with Dutch subtitles as part of the Shock DVD series. That version, flat letterboxed at 1.66:1 and with burned-in Dutch subtitles, fills the first disc of the dual-platter "25th Anniversary Limited Edition," which also includes Troma's interview with producer producer Johan Vandewoestijne (3m15s), a gallery, and the original trailer. Disc two has a bizarre variant, a "new remastered and re-edited version." Running an insane 66 minutes, this producer's "recut" essentially drops most of the padding from the opening act of the film and zips to the good stuff a lot faster. The opening credits have also been completely overhauled to move along more quickly, and the whole film has been reframed shot-by-shot to 2.35:1. It's also been given a major color grading overhaul with lots of heavy golds and blues saturating the majority of the film, resulting in a significant loss of sharpness. Some video-created fade outs are also a strange distraction. Also on the second DVD is “Rabid Grannies: The Story Behind the Film” (38m24s), a making-of documentary presented by Vandewoestijne with a lengthy account of the film's Rabid Granniescreation coupled with plentiful VHS making-of footage. It's in Flemish with no Rabid GranniesEnglish subtitles though.

When Troma announced a Blu-ray/DVD combo release for 2015, the big question was exactly which version would make it onto the HD option. (As with past releases, the included DVD is the exact same one we've always had.) Well, here's where things get really weird. The packaging cites it as an "HD Transfer from Original Materials," which is technically true if that material is disc two of the Dutch DVD. It's the reworked, drastically shortened, faux scope edition, which at least has the gore intact for the first time in America. That version kicks in if you select the "Play Movie" option, and then there's the option to play a "producer's cut," which is... the exact same thing, except there's 90 seconds of black at the beginning for no apparent reason. The "deleted scenes" gore reel is also repeated here, which is now redundant since all that material is now back in the film, and the producer interview from the DVD is ported over as well. The whole thing takes up 11 GB, well under half the real estate of the 25 GB disc, making it a waste of time unless you're a major fan.

In 2023, Vinegar Syndrome managed to finally release the first truly worthy release of this film on Blu-ray, featuring a new 4K scan from the 35mm interpositive. Given the film's technical limitations, this is still a massive step up with the 1.66:1 framing and vibrant colors looking very accurate along with a nice uptick in detail and tangible film grain. The DTS-HD MA 2.0 English audio sounds fine for what it is, with optional English SDH subtitles provided. Not only is all the gore intact here, but this is the longest release to date at 95 minutes including several bits missing from even the longest prior DVDs. Even the prologue runs considerably longer! A new audio commentary by the gang from The Hysteria Continues is a welcome Rabid Granniesaddition as always as they glide through their introductions to the film, its place in the '80s Euro gore pantheon, its tangled censorship history, a riotous debut screening in London, and the charms of other button-pushing films that built up cult followings around the same time. Rabid Grannies"Shit Happens" (12m9s) is a new interview with Vandewoestijne recalling how the project started as a 250-page script(!) called The Long Night, followed by an elaborate account of the production and the conflicting opinions about its tone. In "What Can I Do With This?!" (14m29s), editor Philippe Ravoet talks about the challenge of finding a rhythm and attitude for the film, the challenge of dealing with lots of unusable audio, and wringing as much out of the effects moments as possible. In "Pretty Violent Stuff" (7m31s), Troma's Lloyd Kaufman looks back at the film's hassles with the MPAA, Kervyn's attitude when his film took off, and the problems posed by the film's dubbing, as well as a related anecdote about Bloodsucking Freaks. The feature documentary Forgotten Scares: An In-depth Look at Flemish Horror Cinema (99m16s) from 2016 covers the history of Flemish horror and was originally released on Blu-ray in 2020 as a standalone from Zeno Pictures. It's a fascinating and informative, albeit sometimes disjointed, look at the evolution of horror out of Belgium with a slew of interview subjects starting with the then-recent release of Cub and the legendary Daughters of Darkness before moving through titles like Malpertuis, Rabid Grannies, Lucker the Necorphagus, The Antwerp Killer, and The Pencil Murders."Rabid Grannies: The Story Behind the Film" is ported over from the Shock DVD, here with English subtitles for the first time (though inexplicably stuck near the top of the screen.) The familiar 88-minute cut version is also included here from the same SD master as Troma's DVD, with the Kervyn commentary here as well -- plus the Troma interviews with Vandewoestijne (3m15s) and Kaufman (1m46s), the usual outtake reel (8m35s), and a tape-sourced trailer

Updated review on January 24, 2024.