After escaping from his imprisonment at the insane asylum, nameless and murderous schizophrenic inmate nicked named "Dr. Giggles" (Larry Drake) returns to his childhood town of Moorehigh where it's revealed he is actually Evan Rendell Jr., the son of notorious serial killer Dr. Evan Rendell Sr. (William Dennis Hunt) who was killed by a mob of Moorehigh residents after word of his crimes came to light. Deciding the town is "sick", Evan dons his father's doctor attire and tools to "cure" the town as payback for the death of his father. This puts him on a collision course with teenager Jennifer Campbell (Holly Marie Combs), who carries a possible heart defect and soon becomes an obsession of Evan's.
Dr. Giggles is a 1992 slasher film and is notable for being the first ever film production by comic book publisher Dark Horse Comics as part of an initiative by Dark Horse head Mike Richardson to build relationships within the film industry to adapt their stable of comic properties, with a deal eventually signed with Largo Entertainment with Dr. Giggles the first such venture under the deal. While Larry Drake was initially hesitant to take on the role of Dr. Giggles not wanting to get type cast as a "horror" actor, director Manny Coto convinced him by saying it wasn't a traditional horror film comparing it more to a comic book movie with shades of the dark humor of Tales of the Crypt. With the film given distribution by Universal and a prime date on October 24, 1992, Dark Horse and Largo had every intention of turning Dr. Giggles into a new franchise to serve as a successor to the dormant Friday the 13th and Halloween films as well as the recently "ended" Nightmare on Elm Street films with Dark Horse intending to publish prequel comics as well as an adaptation of the film based on the shooting script. Upon release Dr. Giggles opened in 7th place behind several holdovers including Clive Barker's Candyman which had been in release for two weeks and had support of both critics and audiences. While many critics praised Larry Drake as Dr. Giggles, the general consensus was the film itself was very standard slasher fare and did little to differentiate itself from a later era Elm Street film. The film ended up making $8 million against a $7 million budget, and while there was hope for franchise continuance provided home video sales and rentals came through the film ultimately fell by the wayside. Dark Horse would later experience success with The Mask and Timecop a few years later. Dr. Giggles is enjoyable on a purely superficial level, but if you're looking for something that adds to the slasher formula, Dr. Giggles follows established conventions to a "T".
If there is one thing that Dr. Giggles does well, it's definitely in Larry Drake's central performance as the titular character. Drake has always been a reliable character actor and you can tell he's having fun with this performance very much playing into the "comic book" spirit the filmmakers are going with. While the film itself is never all that scary, Drake does create an oddly compelling murderous lunatic who does invite some comparisons to Freddy Kruger, but in a way where it's still very much his own and if he were to play a actual comic book villain like The Joker you could see him fitting nicely into the role especially with his "giggles" that are sometimes a little unsettling. Manny Coto does play into the high camp aspects of the film going for a bright color palette and exaggerated stylish setpieces with one sequence set inside a carnival's Hall of Mirrors a really stylish and fairly intense scene that shows a lot of ambition to it. Outside of Drake's performance and some of the style of the filmmaking, most of the other characters really aren't that interesting as they fall back into well worn slasher archetypes with not much to distinguish themselves to the point I routinely forgot their names. Holly Marie Combs is fine as Jennifer Carpenter, but it's the kind of role anyone could've played with relative ease. The character I resonated the most with was probably Keith Diamond as Officer Joe Reitz, and what Ken Foree was to Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, Diamond very much is to this film and if the film had been more centered around him investigating Dr. Giggles' killings that probably would've made for a more engaging experience than following the typical slasher fodder.
Dr. Giggles is pretty standard for the type of slasher film you'd expect to find during this lull in the genre before Scream reinvigorated it not matching the novelty of Candyman or Child's Play but being above the quality of a Leprechaun or Children of the Corn sequel. It's maybe worth a one time viewing for Drake's performance or fans of the genre, but it's not going to be super memorable outside of that.
