Vicious Fun - Movie Review
Hi, I’m Zachary and I’m a horror addict. My knowledge of film and literature is photographic. I have all of John Carpenter’s movies memorized save for Prince of Darkness. As you should know, part of growing up is admitting Prince of Darkness is a shitty movie. You know what’s not a shitty movie?
Vicious Fun is a sendup of the Slasher genre. It’s a fun, Easter-egg filled romp set in a Chinese food restaurant. It’s got two fists full of incredible character actors and a mission: to have a good time.
Our “protagonist” is Joel (Evan Marsh), a nerdy blogger who writes horror movie reviews for a trashy magazine. He lives with his gorgeous roommate Sarah. As happens with nerdy, man child virgins, he’s smitten with Sarah because she has a kind heart. Sarah thinks of him as a little brother and as such, has 0 sexual attraction to him. This doesn’t stop Evan from spying on her dates and following her new boyfriend to a Chinese dive bar. With a digital recorder tucked inside his coat pocket, he starts up a conversation with Bob Nice (pronounced Neese) played by the incredible Ari Millen. When Bob discloses that all Sarah talked about on their date is her annoying, clingy roommate, Joel proceeds to get drunk. He gets so sloshed that he blacks out in the bar’s maintenance closet. He wakes to find the bar occupied by a support group for serial killers. Not just any serial killers, but the type that inspire legends. Like Mike, who likes to lay waste to teenage campers and Fritz (Julian Richings) who is an uptight accountant who moonlights as a murderous clown. This is where the fun begins. Joel has to bluff his way out of a room of people responsible for over 12% of the murders in the United States over the last decade.
The movie starts off with Joel’s cringe interactions with a film director and then with Sarah. I hated Joel from minute one, but as movie progressed, I understood that I was supposed to. He’s a good guy who just never had a mentor to show him how to interact socially. Which is relatable as there are more of those people in the sci-fi and horror community than ever before. Joel comes of age over the span of a few hours. He is the final girl, or I guess the final boy to the serial killer hunter Cassie. The mesmerizing Amber Goldfarb plays the badass woman we need in horror. She’s the evolution of the final girl. Much like Stretch from The Texas Massacre II, she adopted a thirst for blood from the killer than marked her life, the mysterious Mr. Midnight.
This film could easily be a stage play as the majority of the story is confined to two locations: the restaurant and the police station. It’s a small scale affair, but what makes it great is the performances provided by the ensemble. Every actor worked their ass off here. You’ve got genre veterans like Julian Richings who I remember fondly as Otto in Kingdom Hospital. Robert Maillet, who you might recognize from WWE as Kurgan from the attitude era. David Koechner is probably the biggest name of the bunch. He’s starred in Krampus, Twin Peaks (reboot), and of course Anchorman. But the real scene stealers are the mustachioed detectives played by Kristopher Bowman, John Fray, and Mark Gibson. I had belly laughs with these guys and their deliveries. They played off of each other like veteran groundlings leading to hilarity. There’s so much to love from beginning to end. I highly recommend it.
This movie is streaming exclusively on Shudder. You need to watch it.
I needs those sequels!
