cw: suicide, mental illness, child abuse
Yep. We’re not quite done with the heavy shit just yet. And what’s more, said heavy shit is even more intrinsic to this film than it was with Smile. The literal first image of the film is of Val (Jerrod Carmichael) and Kevin (Christopher Abbott) pointing guns at each other’s heads, ready to fulfil a suicide pact. The title is the countdown to them actually doing it.
So what if I were to tell you that this film is absolutely hilarious?
We’re dealing with some low-stakes, low-budget horror fare with this one, but that shouldn’t automatically be seen as a bad thing. Shoestring gore can be a beautiful thing when done right, and in all honesty, if you want an example of why budget isn’t everything, horror is a pretty good place to start. And with this in particular, we have a high school horror drama where a bullied emo kid discovers that a ravenous vampire has taken up residence in his backyard shed. Let’s see how far we can get into this review without bringing up a certain franchise all about high school and vampires.
