The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Golden Films) [1996] & The Hunchback of Notre Dame II [2002]

[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]

It's a double feature, folks! So aside from the obvious connection between the two films, there is a reason why this particular combination entered our lives. Kay's go-to favorite book is "The Hunckback of Notre Dame" and Adam finished it a while ago. Because Kay is relentless, they set out on an adventure to watch a bunch of different adaptions of the book including the 1939 film, the Disney film, and the stage musical. While hunting for the Disney film, they came across the Golden Films version of the story and it looked so bad, it went on the bad movie night list and oh, boy was it a ride.

This movie was only 44 minutes long which somehow felt both too long and too short. The movie opens on a song about France that muddles the time period of the story so much that there's no way it's taking place in medieval times. From the beginning, something seems off and Sarah hit the nail on the head: this film looks like someone took a knockoff of "Beauty and the Beast" and retrofitted it to be a "Hunchback" knockoff. Melody, Esmeralda's white gypsy replacement, looks like Belle with a torn hem and hoop earrings. Melody has talking instruments that at one point could have been dishware. The bad guy is some French stereotype named Jean Claude who looks like a poor man's Gaston. He even travels around with his father who looks kind of like LaFou. Jean Claude hits on Melody but when she rebuffs him, he decides to arrest her for "raising his taxes." She meets a mostly not quasi-modoed Quasimodo and they fall in love instantly. JC kidnaps Melody's mom to lure her out and arrest her. She sings a happy song right before her execution. She's saved at the last minute by Quasi who was hot all along.

This film is a terrible delight. The animation is shoddy and repetitive, the few songs are like rejects from a 1930s musical, nothing about the story resembles its namesake and the moral of the story is totally contradicted by the end revel. It's terrible. Watch it.

Spoon Rating: 6

Our second feature of the night was "The Hunchback of Notre Dame II," the hastily thrown together straight-to-DVD sequel to Disney's "Hunchback." The animation is notably flatter and worse than the original but they somehow managed to get back the original voice actors. The plot of this one is basically, "Get Quasi a girlfriend" with an ongoing theme about "inner beauty." Yes, it far less dark than the original and far simpler. Madeline, a circus performer, is told by her comically vain and heavily queer-coded boss to seduce Quasi in order to find out the location of this one expensive bell decorated with gems inside (it's pretty on the inside, geddit?!) that he wants to steal. How one would steal a bell so heavy that it can't be lifted is one question. Another is why do you need to know the location? It's in the BELL tower. Either way, she and Quasi hang out and bond over their shared love of climbing things until Quasi finds out from Phoebus that Madeline is tricking him. The bell gets stolen as well as Phoebus and Esmeralda's kid, Zephyr, and they have to save the day. In the end, Madeline of course has fallen for Quasi and they declare their love at this love festival that is sung about in the beginning. Presumably she moves into Notre Dame, although we never find out how Quasi makes money now that Frollo is dead. Does the church give him a stipend for his work? This bothered us the whole movie.

Overall, this is an interesting watch if you are familiar with the original Disney film but it's probably not fun if you aren't familiar with the source material. We got a few laughs for sure, but it wasn't something we'd feel super compelled to recommend.

Spoon Rating: 4