Glorious (2022) - Movie Review
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before…
A guy walks into a rest-stop bathroom and meets an elder god occupying a glory-hole…
No, no, it’s not that kind of joke.
Where are you going?
So… I watched Glorious.
Let’s discuss.
Glorious is a 2022 Cosmic-Horror-Comedy brought to us by writers David Ian McKendry and Joshua Hull as well as director Rebekah McKendry. The McKendrys are quickly building up a catalog of quality horror with their previous film, All the Creatures Were Stirring being a fun Christmas horror and their work on the Mother segment from Tales of Halloween being a highlight. Their new film doesn’t disappoint.
Cosmic horror is never an easy task. For every Dagon and The Void there are a dozen Beneath Still Waters and What Lurks Below. There are definitely more failed Lovecraft films than successes. Normally, if Brian Yuzna’s name isn’t in the credits—You can be pretty certain the film isn’t going to be any fun and the budget is going to be basement level.
Rare big budget exceptions have occurred though, like Richard Stanley’s Color Out of Space—however any hopes of future Stanley +Lovecraft projects have been dashed with his cancellation as a terrible human being. I won’t go into the details here, but let’s just say he has more in common with the monsters in his films than the hero.
Needless to say, the odds were stacked up against Glorious in my mind. It didn’t help that the trailer for the film made it look way more graphic of a movie than it actually turned out to be. My normal viewing partner for reviews refused to watch the film, worried that it was either hyper sexual or a Terrifier gore-fest.
The film is neither of those things.
It’s a black comedy and it actually got a few belly laughs out of me.
The film centers on Wes, played by the man, the myth, the legend—Ryan Kwanten. Wes is having a bad time. Something has happened between him and the love of his life Brenda. What that is, we don’t know, but it was rough enough that Wes finds himself waking up at a park rest stop with a hangover and no pants. When his stomach decides to turn inside out, he flees into a restroom stall and meets Ghat, an elder god who needs a favor. What follows is a wild descent into madness with Wes needing to confront his past to decide humanities future. Will Wes make the right choice and save the universe or will he be devoured by self doubt? Find out in Glorious!
I can’t remember having this much fun with a horror movie since Tucker and Dale Versus Evil. Even though this film is much darker in tone, it still manages to make you smile.
Part of that is the sharply written script and the other part is the brilliant performances by JK Simmons and genre hero Ryan Kwanten.
Although Simmon’s character is seen, Simmons himself never appears on screen. Instead what you get is that incredible voice used masterfully with select intonation and righteous fury. It’s an incredible performance and a lesser actor would have ruined the film. Look at the game Destiny with the horrible original vocal performance of Peter Dinklage. Even great actors can’t handle voice work. It’s a different mindset and one that Simmons obviously has mastered.
Kwanten on the other hand is always on screen and he embodies the confusion and delirium we as the viewer experience. Kwanten is an unsung hero in the horror genre. He’s one of the few successful final-boys in horror. He’s had outstanding performances in things like True Blood, Knights of Badassdom, and my personal favorite: Dead Silence. He’s a relatable everyman actor who has a face that’s just handsome enough to be a leading man without being too over the top to be unbelievable. He’s also a master of emoting. His non-verbals are off the charts. He tells the story with his entire body.
So, the movie has a great script and fantastic performances—so it’s perfect, right?
Weeeeelllllll…..
…No.
It’s still a low-budget film and thus has some of the main downfalls you see in genre films and especially cosmic horror films. The CGI effects look terrible. We’re talking Playstation 1 level graphics in some scenes that really break the immersion. Unfortunately, filmmakers of these films thing that we need to actually see the cosmic entities or their dimensions, but they forget that in Lovecraft’s fiction—you rarely see anything at all.
The Fear of the Unknown was Lovecraft’s currency.
So it’s fitting that when filmmakers without hundreds of millions of dollars that attempt to show something as complex as Azathoth would fail.
That’s not to say all the special effects were bad, far from it. The practical effects were incredible. Not only was the gore visceral, but the creature effects were incredibly sculpted and unique. The designs were fully original and reflect many of the described elder things from Lovecraft’s fiction.
The film is under 80 minutes, but doesn’t feel abbreviated. It feels concise and frankly it’s refreshing to have a film not need to be 2 hours + to tell a story. Modern film loves to go on and on, but me as a busy person with multiple jobs—getting to watch a fun movie that doesn’t keep me stationary all day is a nice change of pace.
You’ve got to support this film. It’s too much fun not to. I hope this is the first in many cosmic horrors brought to us by the McKendrys.
Glorious is streaming exclusively on Shudder.
