Family Guy Season 14 Episode 4 Review: Peternormal Activity *
Lisa Babick
at
.
Updated at
.
What's so hard about writing a horror movie? Anyone can do it, right?
On Family Guy Season 14 Episode 4 that's exactly what Peter and the guys think after going to see a ridiculously bad horror movie sequel.
Unfortunately for them, their horror movie writing quest soon becomes their own personal horror movie.
And a horror it was.
But first, let's talk about Stewie and Brian – who barely had any screen time this half hour. While they usually can be counted on for laughs, their storyline pretty much fit in with the rest of the episode which was one big yawn fest.
Brian decides to don glasses to give him an air of false sophistication. Stewie hates the idea and vows to destroy the glasses. I didn't understand why Stewie had such a problem with the glasses. Brian wasn't being overly obnoxious, so I had a hard time buying into Stewie's disgust.
After a ridiculous sauna gag that made absolutely no sense, Stewie finally accomplishes his goal when he a takes a bat to Brian's head while an unsuspecting Brian is reading the newspaper. Brian's reaction was hilarious.
Too bad Stewie couldn't have taken his bat to Peter and his horror movie storyline.
It wouldn't have been so bad had it not been done so many times before. And maybe that was the point...to spoof the spoofs and the spoofs of the spoofs. I'm just not sure if I liked it.
Peter and the guys go to the movies to see "Maniac Pope 2," but are disappointed at how bad it was (like how I felt about this episode). They decide to write their own horror movie. After Joe comes up with "Cereal Killers" about a serial killer who only kills people who eat cereal, Quagmire suggests they go to someplace scary for inspiration.
Joe suggests the abandoned Quahog asylum. When they get there Peter, Quagmire, and Cleveland each come up with other ridiculous horror movie ideas. After Joe's cereal killer, the most ridiculous one was Peter's evil bar of soap. Had the writers stayed on this track of coming up with most ridiculous horror movie ideas ever, with cutaways, I think it would have worked much better.
Instead, the story becomes a horror story within a horror story. The guys freak themselves out with their own stories and try to leave the asylum, but are trapped. When they finally think they have a found a way out, they are confronted with a hook-handed guy they think is a killer. They decide to attack the guy and kill him in the process.
As it turns out, the guy, who uncannily looks like Seamus, was just the building's caretaker. And everything that you think will happen happens. The body has to be buried. The janitor's car has to be buried, etc., etc.
The next day Peter is paranoid and overreacts to everything Lois says. I enjoyed how Peter calls himself out for overreacting, but Lois still remained clueless. Just a typical day in the Griffin household. And Joe swearing about the John Mellencamp radio commercial was a definite highlight.
Eventually, the guys decide to frame each other. Then, just as they are about to kill each other, Peter says the events would make a great horror movie. So they make the horror movie, but realize that their horror movie is just as bad as the one they initially saw.
I thought it was rather clever that the janitor they thought was innocent wasn't innocent at all. He was a KKK leader who stole war medals. Nice social commentary, I guess. But then again, isn't that sort of ending a horror movie staple?
What did you think of "Peternormal Activity"? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below and be sure to watch Family Guy online right here at TV Fanatic!
