Starting with a couple of fake 80s DTV trailers (The Piano Killer and Don’t Go In That House, Bitch!) Jimmy & Stiggs – presented by Eli Roth – feels a little like an in-joke in places, and the Roth fan service and nods are clear to see, particularly in the early part of this feature. This is also, undoubtedly, a Joe Begos film: from the very beginning, the acid colours, the booze and drugs and the out-of-control behaviour set the tone for what’s to follow. Jimmy (Begos) is an out-of-work filmmaker who has faceplanted into oblivion; we pick up with him at around the time he’s had a long period of missing time, but it’s not just regular drinker missing time. We have seen something in the apartment with him: it’s alien (think standard-issue ‘greys’) and – as we shift over from Jimmy’s-eye-view to more conventional camerawork, we see Jimmy trying to work out what has happened to him.
Somehow joining the dots between the fact that he can’t remember…anything, the strangely lurid blood all over his apartment and a hypothesis that a) he’s been abducted, b) they’re coming back and c) he’ll be ready to unleash a tirade of violence upon them, Jimmy reaches out to his estranged best friend and movie collaborator Stiggs (Begos frequent flyer Matt Mercer), asking for his help. Stiggs – who has been on the wagon for a few months – heeds the call, though he gets very little time acting as the voice of reason before it transpires that Jimmy may be a mess, but he’s right. The aliens are back, and they’re hellbent on tearing some humans into little pieces.
That’s it, really.
The whole film takes place in Jimmy’s apartment, like a kind of splattery remake of Hardware (1980): this, too, is a sci-fi/horror spin on a closed environment with a killer intruder. Aside from a bit of heart-to-heart between the two old friends (and there is some chemistry between these guys, unsurprisingly, after working on so many projects together), the rest of the film takes us through an intensely violent, lurid, practical FX frenzy, clearly made as an homage to the direct-to-video gore of the 80s which Begos likely grew up on. Part and parcel of that is the film’s teenage vibe (alcohol is toxic to aliens!), teenage dialogue and fixations and blaring, headache-inducing audio and visuals; homage or not, many of the film’s key elements stand to divide the crowd, and you will either think that Jimmy & Stiggs is the ultimate no-brainer midnight movie, or find it all very self-indulgent. Personally, I’m on the fence: I admire its bloody-minded dedication to its simplistic plotline, but in several places the pinballing camera and ‘Jimmycam’ perspective become very wearing, even across a sensibly curtailed runtime and no clear pretensions to doing anything more than blasting through an Attack The Block-style story in a limited location with a tiny cast.
It’s also worth adding that Jimmy & Stiggs started life as a ‘pandemic project’: on balance, looking back at the oeuvre of films which have come into existence due to the lockdown boredom and restrictions of half a decade ago, there are very few films which really stand up. At least this one doesn’t stray too far into alternate timelines and the multiverse, but on the whole, it’s not the strongest Begos film out there: that accolade still goes to VFW, with a strong showing from Christmas Bloody Christmas. Jimmy & Stiggs is a reasonably fun, if flawed, practical-FX-laden tribute to the horror genre, and depending on your outlook its limitations could even be its strengths. One more thing: can we expect to see the Snoop-voiced Don’t Go In That House, Bitch! appear, as is now the way, as a full-length feature? Watch this space…
Jimmy & Stiggs (2024) is available now on UK and Irish digital platforms.