Frightfest Glasgow: Vicious Fun (2020)

Knowing how to balance the horror and the comedy in a horror comedy is a fine art, and one which eludes many filmmakers; it’s not so with Vicious Fun, a film which gets it absolutely right. This is a dark, very funny battle of wills, with a sharp script and a great cast, revelling both in its humour and its violence.

The year is 1983: after spending some time lovingly sharpening an array of knives, Mr Red Flag is heading out for a drive, when he spies a lone young woman in need of a ride. Things…don’t pan out as you might expect, given that summary of the situation; more on this anon. We meet Joel (Evan Marsh), a film writer (egad) who is very fussy about the horror genre he specialises in. Outside of horror, though, he’s a bit of a loner, and he’s unlucky in love, having a huge crush on his housemate Sarah (Alexa Rose Steele) which is going nowhere. One night, on a whim, he decides to trail the guy with the good car who has just taken Sarah out on a date, suspecting him of being married, but really just hoping to get some dirt on him which would mean Sarah sees him as the hero of the hour and therefore, boyfriend material. He follows the guy to a Chinese restaurant, and gets him talking – finding Bob (Ari Millen) fairly receptive to a conversation, although he hears a few things he’d rather not know about – and so Joel gets completely obliterated accordingly, running briefly into the lone female from earlier in the film, before blundering into a store cupboard and passing out.

When he wakes up, he gets back out into the restaurant again but it seems there’s some kind of meeting taking place after hours: Joel has to quite quickly try to work out what’s going on, so he can bluff his way back out the door. It transpires, though, that this is a group meeting of serial killers – one of whom, though fashionably late back to the restaurant, is Bob, and one of whom is Carrie – the woman from earlier. He’s going to have to use all of his wit and persuasion to navigate this situation, especially when Bob kindly decimates his cover story.

The success of this film hinges significantly on Joel as a character, but Marsh’s performance is more than up to it: Joel is very likeable, fallible and very funny. He has a very expressive face and watching the different shades of realisation washing over him – especially given his killer hangover – is hilarious. But as the film expands its focus and we get more from the other characters, they all work terrifically well too. Carrie (Amber Goldfarb) is a good foil to the other members of the group, and you have to appreciate Ari Millen’s turn as Bob – there’s a little Patrick Bateman in there maybe, but he manages to be a very charming psychopath, and more than distinguishes himself. It’s great to see Julian Richings, too, who seems to enjoy his role as Fritz. The whole set-up of circle time for killers is a fun one, and allows a neat integration of the horror and comedy elements as they swap stories and plan more victims.

I’ve commented recently about the surfeit of 80s nostalgia in genre film and how it always tends to do similar things, and Vicious Fun can be counted in with that: it seems almost a rite of passage now to have a shot linger lovingly on, say, a clunky old answering machine, but so far as the 80s setting goes it’s done well enough, with a good soundtrack too. There’s no real reason for the 80s thing, but it’s a fond homage, and a lot is done with this film’s run time: we get references to slashers, to true crime and to horror fandom itself, with a few barbs here and there for film writers, which did make me laugh; touché to director and writer Cody Calahan on that one. The film has a good pace and plenty of plot twists, none of which feel needless or underdeveloped. Vicious Fun is a grisly, often caustic comedy of errors which doesn’t let up or slow down at any point.

Vicious Fun screened as part of Glasgow Frightfest (online) in March 2021.