How do you signal to your audience that things are going to head south pretty fast – other than by titling your film A Most Atrocious Thing, that is? Turns out it’s by showing us almost instantly a sign reading Danger! Contaminated Water! Then a deer drinking from this water, before cutting straight to some guys out in the woods for the weekend, hunting deer. So things kick off quickly and move quickly, with the couple of guys we first meet getting separated, ambushed by a rabid-seeming local and then party to copious bloodshed – all in the first few minutes. And it turns out these aren’t even our main guys, but are there to act as a handy shorthand for the horrors which are about to go down in this charming, funny, gory and completely earnest love letter to horror cinema, shot by a group of friends for the very, very modest budget of $5,000. A Most Atrocious Thing is exactly what indie horror cinema should be all about. No pretensions here.
The main subjects of the film are a group of friends hoping for a celebratory weekend away after graduating college. After some car trouble – which only serves to suggest that these aren’t the world’s greatest problem solvers – and allowing for the fact that two of the party haven’t even left home yet, they’re on their way, arriving at the cabin somewhere in Colorado, getting settled in and perhaps getting close to resolving a friendship issue which has been bubbling away for some time, troubling Ben (Ben Oliphint) and Dylan (Dylan DeVol) in particular. We’re also familiarised with one of the film’s key themes, which is altered states: quite a few of the self-titled Homies are big stoners, and it’s hard not to wonder whether the biggest stoner, Will (Will Ammann) will come through relatively unscathed, as they often do in films: we put a lot of stock, as a culture, in the protective magic of not being fully present on this Earth. But hey, you’ll have to watch to see if it holds true here, too. Maybe, maybe not.
What else is pertinent from this initial set-up? Probably the strangely cognisant, red-eyed, crazy looking stag which seems to be watching the Homies from afar. The same stag we’ve already encountered. No reason not to head out hunting, though: the guys bag a deer, and managed to get it dressed and almost, kind-of cooked for dinner. And that’s where the trouble starts.
Not only is this a very grisly film (I guess with a budget of $5000, you’re bound to be sticking mainly with practical FX, but regardless of budget, it works) it’s very funny, poking fun at itself and its key players throughout, though never reducing them wholly to disposable stereotypes: each of the guys has a personality, and through the film’s easy, natural dialogue which clearly reflects the real-life friendships at the heart of the film, it hangs together. There are good comic timing and performances, which feel spontaneous in the sense that these same friends haven’t needed to agonise over every line; they’ve likely scripted it to entertain each other, and because it therefore lacks artificiality, it entertains us too. It’s not highbrow, but it’s solid and, for all that, there are a surprising number of layers to the script which point to a simple enough set of ideas, just done very well and with the confidence of film fans who know the drill. There’s so much else to enthuse over: the film looks great, with a surprising range of shots, all well handled, with good edits, great framing, and an impressive series of quite long takes, too. The team uses a great set with lots of interesting props, adding lots of interesting little details, and even offering up a Singing Billy Bass, something archaeologists will ponder over hundreds of years from now, as a plot point. A Most Atrocious Thing doesn’t need the on-screen chapters – most films don’t – but moments wasted here are rare, especially in a film with a lean runtime of around seventy minutes.
There are of course some nods to other films here, some overt and some less so, but you might spot a few similarities to Cabin Fever here and there, a dash of The Crazies perhaps, and knowing nods to any number of low budget but beloved zombie flicks, but unless any of those films can best this one in a psychedelic vomit montage, then it hardly matters: what’s clear is the knowledge of genre elements and the sheer enjoyment of playing around with them, in doing a film for themselves. Even while feeling familiar, it all feels strangely refreshing. The Homies are always clearly having a good time, and that feels pretty contagious. Evidence that a film can be knowing and self-referential without ever being smug, A Most Atrocious Thing is a winning combination of agreeable characters, comedy and absurd, splattery zombie horror. It’s also a testament to just getting something made, regardless of the obstacles.
A Most Atrocious Thing (2024) screened at this year’s Seattle Make Believe Film Festival.