November 27, 2018
Written by: Austin Vesely
Starring: Zazie Beetz, Chance the Rapper, Rae Gray
Quote: "So you're telling me, that my pizza place is built on a gateway to hell?"
Trivia: The opening credits have a strong resemblance to the opening credits of "night of the demons" (1988).
I really liked this movie! Somehow the movie came out this year without me hearing a thing about it. It wasn't until I was flipping through Amazon Prime Video that I came across the movie and recognized Chance the Rapper's face on the cover. Chance is surprisingly a really good actor and brings a lot to the film. The film also boasts a handful of other likable actors: Zazie Beetz (Atlanta), Paul Scheer (The League), Chris Parnell (SNL), and Hannibal Burress (The Eric Andre Show), among others. The world that writer/director Austin Vesely creates in the town of Kingfisher is also really fun and seems inspired by the world of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It is a world where humans, ghosts, werewolves, and witches all interact. The movie has been criticized for being schlocky and a stupid B-movie, which it surely is. But what's wrong with that? Beyond the campiness, the movie also offers some insightful social commentary on American society at large. A bit disjointed, the movie is nonetheless a fun ride that I recommend.
The movie takes place in a fictional world very much like our own except that witches, zombies, and ghosts exists. The town of Kingfisher is home to 40,000 ghosts that lead average lives. One day, pizza delivery people from Perfect Pizza begin to get killed and its suspected that its the work of a werewolf. To make matters worse, there is a group of activists calling themselves Justice 40,000 who are trying to get the Halcyon Square shut down which is where Perfect Pizza is located (Halcyon Square was previously the location of an asylum where many of the ghosts were tortured and murdered before when they were still alive). One delivery person, Astrid (Zazie Beetz) takes it upon herself to get to the bottom of the murders. After meeting the werewolf (Chance the Rapper) she realizes that he isn't the killer and the two team up. In the end it turns out that Justice 40,000 were the ones killing the pizza deliverymen in order to get public sympathy to help shut down Halcyon Square/Perfect Pizza. Also, it turns out, they were actually a coven of witches who are trying to open up a gateway to hell... or something.
Despite being a horror movie, Slice never takes itself too seriously and has some genuinely funny scenes. This is immediately made apparent in the beginning of the movie when after the first pizza deliveryman is killed in front of a customer, the customer's eyes almost bug out of his head. Then there is the Mexican ghost that works for Perfect Pizza that spends the entire movie giving grave omens to anyone who talks to him. In another scene when a person is killed and turned into a ghosts she exclaims, "Aww shit, did I just die? That fucking sucks." While the movie is never laugh out loud funny, the camp and comedy are nicely paired with some decent slasher violence.
The movie is also a not so subtle allegory for race relations. The ghosts are treated as second class citizens that are ghettoized and disenfranchised. Meanwhile the activist group is nothing more than a front for more nefarious schemes. When trouble is visited upon the town, it is also to the ghosts (and werewolf) that the town begins to point their fingers at. However, the racial allegory is never deeply explored and largely gets lost in the meandering plot.
Okay, so there is A LOT thrown into this movie. The plot is a bit jumbled and resembles a pizza with all the toppings thrown on. While it makes for an interesting movie, the movie is never really able to go deep into any aspect of the narrative. The rules behind the witches, werewolves, and ghosts are never explained and left me confused a lot of the time. Also, with all these various aspects of the film I had trouble focusing on what was happening in the actual story. I'm still not totally sure what the coven of witches end-game plan was. Lastly, there are so many characters, many of whom are not what they seem, so it gets a bit confusing who is who and what sides they are playing. From a narrative point of view, this movie is one huge cluster fuck.
Narrative problems aside, the movie has a unique plot, great acting, and a fun nostalgia quality to it that will really appeal to fans of Stranger Things (it even has one of the kids in it).
...what's your thoughts?
No comments:
Post a Comment