Much like the classic Lovecraftian protagonist, I too am haunted by knowledge not meant for man. This knowledge comes in the form of movies that a colleague of mine has so generously decided to bring to my attention.

Our story starts out in suburbia. As young Tiffany wakes up to her birthday, the house maid gets a strange package in the mail. Meanwhile, in the cartoon dimension, the story of Hansel and Gretel unfolds. The props and the make-up are hilariously bad in this film. Gretel is played by a grown woman who looks more like a clown than a little girl and Hansel apparently dressed himself this morning as he’s wearing nothing but a hat and lederhosen. The two decide it’s a swell idea to go play in the dark woods and off they go. I should mention that aside from the house and the video store, there aren’t a lot of sets in this movie. There are, however, a lot of green screens and crudely drawn backgrounds.

In the real world, Dad arrives with the in-laws. As Dad gets grandma’s wheelchair, grandma effortlessly falls onto the pavement. Grandpa does what any husband would do and laughs.

Back in the cartoon dimension, Hansel and Gretel find…not quite a candy house, but a candy shanty. It should be noted that this ‘candy house’ is actually a box as tall as a person with Oreos and various hard candies taped to the walls. Hansel and Gretel gorge themselves before summarily throwing up…several times. Seeking relief, they are confronted by a witch. The witch poisons them which transforms Hansel into a giant rat and Gretel into…an uglier Gretel. The two siblings quickly dispatch the witch with their newfound power.

At the party, Tina, the older sister, greets her boyfriend Kevin and his two friends: Ron and Mark. Tiffany opens the mysterious package to find the Terror Toons DVD. Unsure what to think, she puts it in her television. Apparently no red flags are raised by the parents when ‘Written, Produced, and Directed by the Devil’ appears on the screen. In an instant, both Hansel and Gretel pop up and an arc of lightning emanates from the television. Some fat lady, the aunt, is the first to go. A cartoon mallet is given to Grandpa which he uses to repeatedly hit himself causing his skull to cave-in. The party attempts to flee in terror, but the door out leads to a spiraling vortex.

Mom, Dad, Tiffany, and Tina are engaged by Gretel in a game of Musical Scares. I don’t know why it’s called Musical Scares when it’s basically just Musical Chairs. As this game continues, it’s down to just dad and Gretel. Suddenly the music speeds up to an inhuman pace. Dad loses and he loses big, suffering a heart attack. In a panic, the maid flees with most of the family.

No more than 5 minutes after the death of her father, Tina is in the bathroom making out with Kevin. However, in a rare show of sanity she stops this and reveals her master plan: find dad’s gun. Mustering up the courage, Kevin opens the door to the closet only to find the rest of the party goers who scatter and flee. One by one they are killed in those most absurd way imaginable until it’s just Kevin, Tina, Ron, and Mark.

Faced with overwhelming odds, the group decides the best and smartest course of action is entering the vortex. Separated from the rest of the group, Ron is ambushed by Gretel who knocks him out. The terrible twins proceed to replace Ron’s brains with monkey brains because they’re retarded. Somehow, Ron regains consciousness and starts jumping up and down like a monkey. In Mark’s neck of the woods, Gretel has appeared and sexually assaults him. Mark manages to fight her off, but the damage is done. Later, Tina and Kevin find Mark, now a bleeding mass of boils. Mark’s boils begin to rupture until he finally dies and a cartoon worm crawls out.

In yet another show of genius, Kevin and Tina decide their best bet is to escape through a door labeled ‘HELL.’ It is here that our heroes encounter Satan’s son, Damian. Through some bullshit loophole, Kevin and Tina both realize they have superpowers and transform into superheroes. That’s right. They turn into superheroes because they believe they can. Perhaps Hell isn’t so bad after all. After a brief fight, Damian kills Tina after forcing her to ‘receive his snake.’ His words, not mine.

Back in the real world, Kevin suddenly appears to the rescue the rest of the family. How he survived Damian’s wrath is never revealed, maybe it’s meant to be thought-provoking, or maybe Joe Castro wrote himself into a corner. As Kevin dispatches the terrible twins, he is assisted by Ron the Monkey boy and the reanimated corpse of Tina. The television has now been transformed into a DVD-maker. Kevin sits on a giant rocket, ready to destroy the television. I don’t know why he has to ride the rocket. Launching the rocket, there is a huge explosion, in which you can still see the house visibly intact. That’s it. We never know if Kevin survived or managed redeem Tina’s soul. Meanwhile, at Red Hot Video Rental, a delivery man drops off some copies of Terror Toons. We learn that it’s Damian…and “it’s a special delivery.” Roll credits. Weep in corner.

If you had a hard time reading this review, take comfort in knowing I had a hard time writing it. After the initial viewing, my mind had paved over that part of my memory. Perhaps for subconscious fear that any memory or utterance of the title would cause it to become corporeal, much like Beetlejuice. I have to admit that there were some imaginative special effects for what kind of budget Castro was working with. That’s about all the praise I can give.