Head of the Family is a 1996 black comedy released by Full Moon Features. It concerns a Southern couple who blackmail a family of mutants to get money and revenge. It was rated R for language and nudity.
Plot
Howard Oats (Gordon Jennison Noice) is a murderous thug and drug-dealer in town. Howard attempts to extort money from dinner owner Lance (Blake Bailey). Coincidentally Howard's wife, Lorretta is having an affair with Lance. Driving back from one of their nightly flings, Lance witnesses the local family of eccentrics, the Stackpools, dragging a man from his truck and into their house. Seeing this as an opportunity for blackmail, Lance threatens to reveal they are terrible secret. They are quintuplets with inhuman powers. Otis has superhuman strength, Weeler has super senses, has seductive abilities, and Myron Stackpool (head of the family who has superintelligence. As the title would suggest Myron is little more than an enormous head with limbs. He psychically controls his other siblings, really wants a human body of his own. To accomplish this he experiments on the brains of locals, trying to find a method of transplanting his intellect in another body. Lance uses this knowledge to blackmail the Stackpools into killing Howard. When this is accomplished Lance starts demanding $2,000 a week in cash. The Stackpools gained their fortune through oil and coal. Eventually, Myron tires of Lance's bottom-feeding, and captures him and Loretta, to get them to destroy the evidence of their secret. To force Lance's hand, he puts Loretta in a play of Joan of Arc, complete with a burning at the stake. But before she harmed, Otis, seeing the 'pretty girl' in trouble, carries her away, and sets fire to the house. With the Stackpools and Lance apparently dead, the ever scheming Loretta realizes that the big dumb one is the heir to the family riches. She marries him inheriting all the Stackpool fortunes, but at the end of the ceremony, Otis breaks into eerie laughter suggesting that Myron is still alive and is controlling the dumb one again...
Cast
- Gordon Jennison Noice as Howard Oats
- Jacqueline Lovell as Loretta
- Blake Bailey as Lance
- Alexandria Quinn as Unnamed Strongman
Sequel
- On June 25, 2008, director Charles Band announced that he'll be making a sequel titled Bride of the Head of the Family. Along with Head of the Family is Puppet Master 9: Axis of Evil, Demonic Toys 2: Personal Demons, Killjoy 3, and Gingerdead Man 3: Saturday Night Cleaver. Bride of the Head of the Family was originally set to be made in the late 1990s and a photoshoot was even done, but the film fell through.