Fatty Drives The Bus - On The Tour Bus To Hell

Fatty Drives The Bus
1999
D: Mick Napier
W: Mick Napier

S: Scot Robinson, Joe Bill, Ken Manthey
Not Rated - Approx 82 Min
Annoyance Productions/Covert Creative Group Inc. 

Taglines:
 - Satan's Ride on the Highway To Hell! All Aboard For Mayhem!!

Alternate Titles:
None









"We wouldn't get where we were today, Jimmy, if we laid down every time God swung his cock around."
                                                                       -Satan

I've had this movie on my radar for a very, very long time and the disc has been in my collection for about a decade.  So what made me pull it off the shelf an watch it today?  I have no idea.  But I'll tell you what......it actually surprised me a bit.  I was expecting the usual sorta low budget Troma flick.  While the film is absolutely low budget, it was completely different than I expected.  No gross out gore gags and no rampant nudity.  Instead what I got was a quirky little comedy that tried to spread a message of good will.  Seriously!

This is Satan.  Yep.

It's Satan....er....I mean....Roger!

So the low down is that Satan is low on his soul quota for the month.  When he hears that one of his minions has cancelled the death of a group of tourists, whose tour bus was scheduled to crash (on account of the fact that Jesus was going to be in town), Satan decides to go topside and collect the souls of those tourists himself.  In order to do so, he transforms himself into a friend tour guide named Roger (thanks to the handy dandy Metamorpho Machine that's powered by a demon pedaling and exercise bike.  Hey, I told ya it was quirky!

The Metamorphosis Machine!  Ooooooh!  Aaaahhh!

We're introduced to each of the tourists individually.  There's a young woman whose mother absolutely despises her, constantly reminding her that she ruined her life by being born....along with their friend Bridget (played by a dude).  Bridget is fairly hilarious because the fella playing her plays her as if she's an Andrew Dice Clay wannabe transvestite ("Hey, I'm a beautiful broad!").  There's also a hyper-stereotypical suburbanite couple who are constantly cracking jokes and being generally annoying.  An eccentric rich couple who refuse to get off the tour bus at any of the sights, a couple of guys just out for kicks and one seriously fucked in the head dude that did some bad things to some dogs in the name of science.

"Here's two fives, gimme two tens!"

Bridget is a beautiful broad.

The comedic aspects often fall short and many times seemed very forced, such as the bizarre actions of the eccentric rich couple when we are first introduced to them.  Seemingly twisting, turning and walking about in all directions without aim.  Their walk down their staircase almost started to test my patience with the gag.  There are other gags that play far better, such as the guy who keeps carelessly spending all his money on the most asinine things.  Still rather stupid, but it makes you chuckle at least.

Oh Jesus Christ.  Literally.

I was a bit disappointed to find that no one met any gruesome deaths.  Surely, you would think, a film about Satan coming to claim the souls of oddball tourists would feature some cheap and cheesy gore!  Especially a film put out by Troma.  But the fact of the matter is, there is nothing even remotely gory.  Color me a bit disappointed in that respect.  Quite literally, the film is Satan aka Roger taking these people on a tour of Chicago while some of their personal stories play out a bit.

When you factor in the bizarre and ineffective comedy, the oddball characters and the fact that the acting is pretty terrible, it someone all coalesces into some sort of beautiful mutant butterfly and manages to squeak out some charm.  It certainly isn't a good film by any stretch of the imagination, but would I watch it again?  Yes.  Yes I would.  Would I show it to others?  Again, yes I think I would.

GORE
Nothing.  Not one single solitary drop of the red stuff.

T&A
Nothing.  Not one single solitary boob.  On the plus side there wasn't any obese men running around with their junk jiggling all over the place.  Hey, it's Troma....you come to expect that kinda thing!

MONSTERS
We get to see Satan in his "true form" in the beginning of the film.  Which is basically an emo dude with pink/purple skin, high cheekbones and long black hair.  Meh.  I'll take it.




FINAL THOUGHTS
Look this flick isn't for everyone, that's for damn sure.  You're either going to dig it or you're not.  I really don't think that there's going to be any folks that fall in the middle.  You've gotta be in the mood for some quirky late 90's indie comedy schtick to even consider taking this one on.  This may be best watched with some friends while the adult beverages flow freely!