Have you noticed that people are getting tied to chairs, or tormented with household tools etc. a lot less frequently in horror nowadays? You could be forgiven for assuming that gratuitous ultraviolence is dead – or at least taking a break. That’s not so in The Wrath of Becky (2023) however: whilst the tone is a long way away from the ordeal horrors of the Noughties, this film is certainly a grisly revenge story which strikes a good balance between cartoonish improbability and more plausible elements – its characters, plot and narrative. It’s a sequel to Becky (2020), but it stands on its own perfectly well, so if you haven’t seen the first film – don’t worry. You’ll get it.
We do get some back story first of all, however: Becky is just a regular teenage girl whose family were attacked by a band of violent Neo-Nazis whilst weekending at a picturesque lake house; said Nazis were in dispute about a mysterious key, which they were searching for there. A case of mistaken identity, sure, but this didn’t stop her father losing his life in the attack – an attack which triggered something in Becky (and we see a bit of that in flashback). Post-ordeal, Becky has got into a pattern of faking saccharin repentance which gets her warmly accepted into foster homes, which she then flees. The attack has turned her into something of a worst-case scenario prepper, perhaps understandably: she spends her time not sleeping, training and setting traps. But Becky has finally found some stability living with Elena, a landlady who has become a friend. The young woman also has a job at a diner. Life certainly isn’t normal, but it’s consistent in ways it hasn’t been for a while.
Things are about to get a lot more interesting, though – if that’s the word for it. Yeah, actually it’s a pretty serviceable word for it. A group of men calling themselves The Noble Men (the thinnest pastiche of The Proud Boys you are ever likely to to encounter) are rolling into town ahead of crashing a local political event, seemingly with nefarious purposes. A small number of them choose Becky’s workplace for a preliminary meet-up and one coffee-based altercation later, they – assuming they have the whip hand in this situation – follow her home to frighten her, but here, things spiral rapidly out of control. Still, thanks to the fact that they have accidentally chosen a very damaged, very dangerous young girl, it doesn’t end with Becky getting a sizeable new dose of trauma. Putting her array of aggressive skills to the test, she tracks them down, not least because they have made off with her beloved dog Diego (credited on IMDb under the name, and this is real, Pac Williams).
This is a bright red laugh-scream of a film, with a great raft of set-ups and set pieces. It’s graphic and bloody, with lots of practical SFX, but the whole film has a consistently knowing but lively feel which comes across via its fast edits, brash but entirely suitable music, quick-changing camera work and a highly colourised, slick overall appearance. The cartoon which accompanies the opening credits does a good job of establishing what this film is going to be, and what it’s going to be like; similarly, Becky’s voiceover, though used sparingly, invites the idea that she, and the filmmakers, are having fun with us – even occasionally at our expense, which also feels fine. Becky confides in the audience, but messes with us too, getting us on side but reminding us that she may be giving us set-ups which aren’t going to unfold the way we predict. It’s another excuse for a fast edit when it happens, and it works well, moving things along at pace. Becky is a de facto unreliable narrator, but the whole film is an array of competitive violence and one-upmanship, so it’s all good.
If it’s like anything else, then perhaps it’s You’re Next (2011): similar pace and tone, similar mash-up of home invasion, survivalism and splatter, similar hard-as-nails female protagonist. By the way, how refreshing that we’ve moved on rape/revenge, to just revenge: once upon a time women rarely became capable of such superhuman horrors without having been sexualised and abused first; aside from some charming epithets thrown her way, Becky’s revenge is an entirely desexualised thing. It’s not a totally desexualised film – the Noble Men mention Parler and 4Chan as they casually chat about their misogyny – but it’s not a central plank here, other than the script using it knowingly to flesh out these characters as bad’uns. The script on the whole is consistently funny and knowing, too, and the very minor lulls are only there to give us just enough character info to make sense of what happens next. The Noble Men are to an extent overwritten and overdrawn, sure, but this isn’t a deeply philosophical work; the point is to justify Becky’s vengeance (though, all told, the second they threaten the dog, most people will be fully on board anyway. Kill them!)
The Wrath of Becky is a crowd pleaser, full of OTT rough charm and gratuitous just desserts; it’s hard not to love its boundless energy. And yeah, there is a bit of retro tied-to-chair action going on, but it works in its place. Everything here works just fine, and it’d be great to see Becky again some time.
The Wrath of Becky (2023) arrives in cinemas on 26th May, 2023.