Vicious Fun
4 star(s), 96 minutes, Shudder
What a difference a month makes as we now find a bounty of top-tier releases guaranteed to keep fans satisfied.
Kicking off our packed list of 4-star new titles is the latest from director Cody Calahan, which Shudder wisely snatched up as a streaming exclusive.
“Vicious Fun” is a wonderfully gory, truly funny love letter to the irreverent slashers of the 1980s with a 21st-century twist.
Set in 1983, the film follows Joel (Evan Marsh), a meek ‘horror journalist’ who writes for a very sly homage to Fangoria magazine called ‘Vicious Fanatics.’ Joel lives with a gorgeous roommate whom he believes is the one for him. The roommate, Sarah (Alexa Rose Steele), has totally friend-zoned Joel, however, choosing to hook up with a sleazy local Realtor named Bob (Ari Millen).
Joel follows Bob to a restaurant, and in a twist that only happens in movies, Bob ends up getting Joel blotto drunk. When Joel wakes up, in a cleaning closet, Bob is gone and the restaurant is closed, but there’s a support group meeting in the dining room.
Turns out, this particular group is made up of notorious serial killers, including a government assassin (David Koechner), a clown that immobilizes his victims (Julian Richings), a stereotypical ‘80s camp co-ed stalker (Robert Maillet), a Japanese knife expert (Sean Baek) and a blonde femme fatale (Amber Goldfarb) with a dark secret.
When Joel stumbles into the meeting, he is forced to use his wits and his knowledge of horror movies to convince the crew that he is actually one of two late-arriving members. What Joel doesn’t know is that the last group member yet to arrive is actually Bob.
Calahan continues to impress as a director. He keeps the action moving, he doesn’t fall into the same traps and plot-holes as less-experienced auteurs, and he finds unique camera angles and cool visual tricks to distinguish his style.
“Vicious Fun” is an absolute blast, and not to be missed. And, if you haven’t yet seen Calahan’s earlier films—the incredible “Let Her Out” and the highly enjoyable “Antisocial”— you should definitely add those to your must-see list.
Anything for Jackson
4 star(s), 97 minutes, Shudder and DVD
Speaking of Julian Richings, who so memorably played Death for several seasons on “Supernatural,” the longtime British character actor has truly increased his output of late, and fans should be so grateful.
Richings is fantastic in every role he takes on, and he’s never been better than he is in “Anything for Jackson,” a festival favorite from 2020 that’s finally available to watch at home.
We’ve talked about “Anything for Jackson” before, but the fact remains that few demonic possession/ghost stories can rival the originality and ambition on display in Justin G. Dyck’s film about two grandparents (and Satanists) willing to do whatever it takes to resurrect their daughter’s only child.
It’s impressively bloody, wholly unpredictable and a genuine genre treasure waiting to be discovered.
Godzilla vs. Kong
4 star(s), 113 minutes, streaming, Blu-Ray and DVD
First things first, yes, it’s OK to admit that you could easily remove every human character and subplot from Adam Wingard’s superior kaiju creature feature.
They’re completely redundant, yet wholly necessary in a weird way because without the people, it’s hard to imagine how Wingard could easily move his chess pieces around in order to finally allow Godzilla and King Kong to square-off in a battle of titans for the ages.
For anyone keeping score at home, “Godzilla vs. Kong” is the best American “Godzilla” movie ever made in terms of large-scale kaiju destruction. The glee with which Wingard stages each battle between G & K is palpable, and it works to awaken your inner 12-year-old in a way that neither of the previous “Godzilla” films accomplished.
Forget the people, excuse the corny dialogue and don’t even bother with the overly-complicated plotline about an interlocking network of caves deep below the Earth’s surface where giant monsters are free to move across the globe with fantastic speed.
The reason you’re watching “Godzilla vs. Kong” is to see the titular matchup, and it does…not…disappoint!
Nobody
4 star(s), 92 minutes, streaming, Blu-Ray and DVD
I don’t care that I’ve already reviewed “Nobody,” or that I’ve already urged everyone to run, not walk, to see Bob Odenkirk kick all kinds of ass. I will not miss an opportunity to champion this movie because since Covid-19 ransacked our lives, “Nobody” still stands tall as one of the three best wide releases in the pandemic age (along with “The Tomorrow War” and “A Quiet Place Part II”).
If you haven’t seen it, for fuck’s sake, stop reading and go rent it on your favorite streaming platform right now.
Hunter Hunter
4 star(s), 93 minutes, streaming, Blu-Ray and DVD
A surprising and wholly subversive slasher, “Hunter Hunter” proves that gut-punch cinema is alive and well in 2021.
This is the kind of movie that you have zero idea while watching where it might go next, which is such a rarity and such a joy.
“Hunter Hunter” tells the tale of a family living way off-grid, deep in a mountainous region. The father (Devon Sawa), his wife (Camille Sullivan) and daughter Renee (Summer H. Howell) live off the land as fur catchers. That is, until they believe a large and very hungry wolf has invaded their tight-knit bubble.
Writer-director Shawn Linden isn’t interested in a traditional man-versus-nature thriller, not at all. He also doesn’t care about your feelings, your investment to his characters or your inability to handle scenes that would send even the least squeamish scrambling for a commode.
The third act of “Hunter Hunter” is overwhelmingly brutal, and that’s a compliment. Nothing is as it seems, especially not the odd stranger that mysteriously appears at the family’s enclave.
This is a film that will stick to you long after the credits roll.
Superdeep
3 star(s), 115 minutes, Shudder
I really, really, really wanted to love “Superdeep,” a new exclusive title to Shudder’s streaming platform, which hails from Russia.
With equal parts “Event Horizon” and “The Descent” at play, this story of a government team of soldiers and scientists tasked with recovering precious research and lab samples from the bottom of the world’s deepest borehole could have been an instant classic, and at times, writer-director Arseny Syuhin pushes his cast and his special effects team to deliver the goods.
The problem is that “Superdeep” doesn’t push far enough, leaving far too many missed opportunities on the table, particularly once the rescue team reaches the depths of the borehole.
What I wanted was a taste of the surreal and insane imagery that manifested in the third act of John Carpenter’s “In the Mouth of Madness,” where an orgy of bizarre, Lovecraftian creatures charged forth at Sutter Cane’s urging.
What you get instead is fleeting teases of what might have been, along with a so-so conclusion that feels far too clean for what you’ve just watched.
Feed the Gods
2.5 star(s), 84 minutes, streaming, Blu-Ray and DVD
I’m a sucker for a good Bigfoot movie. The problem, of course, is that they’re aren’t many good Bigfoot movies.
“Feed the Gods,” which was filmed and finished in 2014, but is finally getting a proper Blu-Ray release seven years later, starts off really strong. For a good third to half of its runtime, “Feed the Gods” is a solid slice of Bigfoot horror that carefully teases its titular monsters while focusing on the frayed brotherly bonds of Will (Shawn Roberts) and Kris (Tyler Johnston), who are dealing with the death of their adoptive mother.
In one of those ‘only in movies’ moments, Will discovers an old VHS tape in a box of his adoptive mother’s belongings, which appears to show a snippet of video where they’re parents appear in a town they’ve never heard of.
Will, Kris and Kris’s wife road trip to the town, which is the kind of off-putting, weird hidden hamlet only found in TV shows like “Twin Peaks.” The town is supposedly a haven for Bigfoot activity, which captures Will’s imagination, including multiple businesses that prominently display a strange idol that appears to depict a Sasquatch as a deity.
So far, so good.
Just as “Feed the Gods” is rounding the final turn and about to sprint toward the finish line, securing its place in Bigfoot cinema history, it all falls apart.
The entire third act feels rushed, which is shocking, given the meticulous care that writer-director Braden Croft had shown to that point. Instead of slowing down the action in order to wring every ounce of tension and suspense out of his set-up, Croft instead just flails his way through one reveal after another, completely undermining the horror elements and doing a great disservice to his actors who have gamely played their parts.
I’m a sucker for a good Bigfoot movie. “Feed the Gods” had potential to be such a film.
School’s Out Forever
2.5 star(s), 105 minutes, streaming, Blu-Ray and DVD
The latest entry in the high school-set, virus-of-unknown-origin, pandemic thriller genre, “School’s Out Forever,” is a mixed bag. The characters are somewhat developed, the viral outbreak is never fully explained and the third act basically feels ripped from an episode of “The Walking Dead” with the elite boarding school students engaged in a standoff with a fortified band of survivors trying to rescue one of their own who stormed the school only to be taken hostage.
It’s not bad, but it’s not terribly memorable, either.
Too Late
2.5 star(s), 80 minutes, streaming, Blu-Ray and DVD
Movies about comedians are often saddled with the expectation that films about supposedly funny people should be, you know, funny.
“Too Late,” the feature debut of director D.W. Thomas, gets points for exploring a left-field concept—that comedians, as a demographic, are less human than other people, and as such possess an energy that can be harvested into comedic inspiration through ingestion—but this story of a particularly awful human, aging comic Bob Devore (Ron Lynch), who is some kind of immortal cannibal demon, striking a Faustian bargain with his lowly assistant to essentially serve him up a revolving door of meat never really finds its groove.
There’s a good amount of gore, and some solid practical makeup effects, which means there’s likely an audience for Thomas’ film on VOD.
Strike Commando
2 star(s), 104 minutes, streaming, Blu-Ray and DVD
As ‘80s action stars go, Reb Brown is never going to be remembered in the same breath as Sylvester Stallone, Dolph Lundgren or Jean-Claude Van Damme, but this starring vehicle, “Strike Commando,” an Italian rip-off of “Rambo: First Blood Part II,” tries mightily to make Brown seem as unstoppable and unflappable as his better-known action cohorts.
Bad Detectives
1.5 star(s), 94 minutes, streaming, Blu-Ray and DVD
In addition to Bigfoot movies, I’m also a sucker for a good, seedy private detective flick, in part because I’m also a PI myself, and on the surface, Presley Paras’ feature debut, “Bad Detectives,” seemed custom-made to slake my thirst for a solid noir.
The problem with “Bad Detectives” is not Paras’ direction; it’s the script by first-time screenwriter Chris Johnson.
Johnson creates a situation where two protagonists, the granddaughters of two veteran investigators who have died under mysterious circumstances, are forced to work together to unravel the identity of the killer. One, Ping Liu (Dralla Aierken), is all business. The other, Nic O’Connell (Freya Tingley), is a walking cliché, a too-gruff former soldier whose first instinct always is to make the worst decision possible.
Oddball pairings often make for solid entertainment, but Johnson has no idea what to do with his leading ladies other than to keep shining a light on their personal flaws, which neuters Paras’ ability to inject any momentum or believability into the story.
The Darkness
1.5 star(s), 94 minutes, streaming, Blu-Ray and DVD
Writer-director Tharun Mohan’s decision to make a horror movie based on witchcraft as his first feature film is an admirable choice. Witches have become the new zombies, as far as genre popularity, and many filmmakers in recent years have mined the dark arts for solid chills and a handful of classic films.
The problem with “The Darkness,” however, is that it’s deadly dull.
When you’re making a movie about witches, you can’t go more than an hour without anything, you know, witchy happening, which is sadly the case here.
Not to be overlooked
An Unquiet Grave (Shudder): Terence Krey’s super creepy supernatural thriller, “An Unquiet Grave,” about a husband’s attempt to resurrect his wife a year after her death, is now available on Shudder.
Finding Ophelia (Streaming): This hallucinatory waking nightmare about a man’s obsession with the titular female is now available on video-on-demand.
The Serpent (Streaming): Gia Skova directs and stars in this female-centric action movie as a CIA agent left out in the cold.
Also Available as of June 22, 2021:
French Exit
Your Honor: The Complete Series
Just a Gigolo
Major Dundee: Limited Edition
Georgetown
Wildcat
Irezumi
Years of Lead: Five Classic Italian Crime Thrillers – 1973 – 1977
Camino: Special Edition
John W. Allman has spent more than 25 years as a professional journalist and writer, but he’s loved movies his entire life. Good movies, awful movies, movies that are so gloriously bad you can’t help but champion them. Since 2009, he has cultivated a review column and now a website dedicated to the genre films that often get overlooked and interviews with cult cinema favorites like George A. Romero, Bruce Campbell and Dee Wallace. Contact him at Blood Violence and Babes.com, on Facebook @BloodViolenceBabes or on Twitter @BVB_reviews.
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This article appears in Jul 1-7, 2021.