Macabre…ish Horror Review: Vicious Fun
Vicious Fun, 2020/ 1 hr 43 min
In 1983, a serial killer targets a woman, Carrie (Amber Goldfarb),once she realizes what’s happening, to his surprise, she repeatedly stabs him to death.
Years later…
A socially awkward horror journalist, Joel (Evan Marsh), interviews a film director, Jack (Gord Rand), for a horror magazine and pitches him an idea about a serial killing taxi driver.
Back at home, Joel, who has a crush on his roommate, Sarah (Alex Steele), and is jealous of her new boyfriend, Bob (Ari Millen). Joel follows her boyfriend to a restaurant and drinks with him at the bar. Bob doesn’t know who Joel is and talks crap about him, to his face. Then Bob not only leaves him with the bill but he leaves with another woman.
Joel stays, gets drunk and passes out in a closet. When he wakes up, he finds the restaurant closed and a 12 Step meeting taking place in the dining room. The group mistakes him for someone else named Phil and he joins the group.
Sensing danger, he plays along and joins the introductions. He’s Phil. Also in the group is Zachary (David Koechner), Hideo (Sean Baek), Mike (Robert Maillet), Fritz (Julian Richings) and Carrie. Joel quickly realizes why they are there, they are serial killers and this is their self help group. They share excruciating details and minutia of their activities. Joel is finding it sickening and finding it hard not to gag.
Joel uses his movie idea to try to blend in. Then Bob enters, he too is a killer, he systematically poked holes in Joel’s story until they realize that he is not Phil. And they argue about what to do about it.
When Zachary starts exerting too much control trying to decide what to do with him, Mike, Bob and Fritz kill him. Then Joel drops his recorder and Carrie seizes the moment to separate Joel and locks him in the kitchen and confesses that she belongs to a secret organization that kills serial killers and she’s spent 15 months infiltrating this circle. And she’s studied the members, they are collectively responsible for 12% of the murders in the US.
The others try to figure out what is going on and once it’s clear Carrie isn’t coming out, they break into the kitchen. Carrie cuts off Fritz’s fingers when he opens the back door, Hideo crawls through the vent and Carrie kills him with Phil’s intestines. Phil’s been in the freezer the entire time.
Then Bob find’s Joel’s license and realize he’s Sarah’s roommate and threatens to kill her. Joel pulls the fire alarm in response which turns out to be a huge mistake. Bob calls 911 and pins the crimes on Carrie by giving her description. And the three of them lie in wait for the cops to show up.
At the police station, Joel, is singing like a bird. And Carrie is not so subtly warning them that they are all in danger. Joel tries to warn Sarah, she doesn’t listen. And Bob the chameleon arrives masquerading as a special agent and the police do not listen when Joel tells them who he is. Meanwhile, Carrie quietly observes from her cell and works on picking the lock.
The cops even let Bob go through the evidence from the scene, which includes Carrie’s black book and Joel’s recorder. Meanwhile, Fritz, arrives at the station and toys with a lone cop, Tony, then injects him with a paralytic and hammers a nail into his head. When another cop goes out to check on Officer Tony (John Fray), he finds the lights out and at the breaker box, he’s chopped up by Mike.
The last cop is killed by Bob, who drives objects into each of his ears. When Carrie and Joel get out of their cells, she tells him to get lost. But Joel is under the impression that they’re a team, he learns different. Carrie has a job to do and she’s not leaving until it’s done.
Sarah shows up to the police department with Joel and she holds her own against Fritz. It turns out Bob is the hardest one to kill.
Carrie is badly injured and taken to the hospital but bloody foot prints tells Joel that Bob has arrived and Carrie’s in danger. With Joel’s help, Carrie kills him and sneaks out of the hospital.
With Joel as Carrie’s newly minted intern, there are more serial killers out there to hunt.
This film was directed by Cody Calahan it was brutal and fun. The social awkwardness of Joel provided good compliment to the cold calculating brutality of the killers. The killers also had interesting backstories and were all extreme in personality and methods. You really got the feeling that, for that reason, the group was doomed to fail regardless. It goes off the rails spectacularly and it was a pleasure to watch!