Fang Review

Buffalo Dreams Fantastic Film Festival Coverage

Fang review.

The Buffalo Dreams Fantastic Film Festival came to a close with a screening of Richard Burgin’s Fang. The age-old story of boy meets rat, rat bites man, man believes he is becoming rat.

New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.

Fang

Directed by Richard Burgin

Written by Richard Burgin

Starring Dylan LaRay, Lynn Lowry and Jess Paul

Fang Review

Fang takes a simple premise and plays it for all it’s worth.  A dash of body horror combined with a pinch of surrealism and a peck of psychological horror.  At the center is a trauma horror story about a young man trapped by life.  When your only release is the belief that you are slowly transforming into a rat…you know you’ve had a rough go of it.  A patient build to an excellent payoff…Fang feels destined to become a cult classic.

Billy (Dylan LaRay) lives under the thumb of his sickly mother Gina (Lynn Lowry).  The emotional toll of caring for her has doomed him to a life of solitude.  When Gina has an accident while he is at work, they’re forced to find someone to provide care 24/7.  Enter Myra (Jess Paul), a young woman who tries to help Billy overcome his issues.  Any chance of Billy’s life turning around takes a downturn when he is bitten by a rat and appears to begin transforming into one himself.

Gina is suffering from Parkinson’s disease.  Lowry, a genre veteran, is given a meaty role to sink her teeth into.  She’s consistently entertaining and makes the role a memorable one.  She goes for it at every turn.  At times a sad, broken woman in dire need of help she refuses to ask for.  At times a loud, dominating character who goes out of her way to make life difficult for those around her.  It’s Gina’s condition and the stress it places on Billy that serve as the catalyst for his (possible) transformations. 

Repetition defines Billy’s life.  He spends his days sweeping a warehouse for a boss unwilling to cut him any slack.  His nights are spent dealing with his mother’s mood swings.  His only respite is the time he spends drawing a fantasy world.  Myra’s arrival, and the rat bite, represent major changes in his day-to-day life.  LaRay is excellent.  His portrayal of a young man slowly losing touch with reality walks a perfect line between realistic and untethered. 

Despite firmly sitting in the horror camp…the movie that most came to mind while watching Fang was 2019’s Joker.  Fang has a more interesting mother/son dynamic…but the parallels are unavoidable.  Billy is stuck in a dead-end job with a sick mother to care for. He’s in need of psychological (and medicinal) help that he is unable to procure.  The decent into madness is much different here than it was in Joker…but has the same air of inevitability to it. 

That’s not a criticism of Fang.  It finds plenty of original things to say through both its body horror and surrealist elements.  As Billy spirals from the hopelessness surrounding him…he retreats to the bathroom to compulsively scratch his arm.  His usual open sores replaced by patches of rat fur when his panic is at its highest levels.  Convinced he’s turning into a rat…Billy starts to hallucinate The Rat King…imploring him to do violence. 

Fang is a little too long.  It takes some of its steps too slowly…and introduces an extreme option to solve some of Billy’s problems out of nowhere, late in the going.  Fang‘s third act forgives all these issues.  Billy’s slipping mental state provides a lot of fun.  LaRay’s performance becomes more compelling as it goes on.

The scariest aspect of Fang isn’t the body horror or the visions of The Rat King.  Gina’s mental deterioration and the realistic destruction of Billy’s psyche is.  There are a few truly uncomfortable scenes involving Gina’s fugue states and Billy’s inability to cope with the world around him.  Myra finds herself surrounded by madness. She does her level best to help both doomed characters.  Jess Paul doesn’t have a showy role that Lowry and LaRay do…but her presence tethers Fang to reality even as it spins out of control.  And out of control is the name of the game by the time the credits roll on Fang. 

Fang is a perfect midnight movie.  Once you see it…you want to talk to about it.  It ramps up to a wild finale with two standout performances making everything that comes before it fascinating.  Fans of many different types of horror will find something to like in Fang.  Fans of independent movies that take fun swings…will find a lot to love.

Scare Value

Fang feels destined to become a cult classic. Consistently interesting with some surreal highs. It’s a tad slow at times but what follows is almost always worth it. A couple of go for broke performances keep you glued to the strange world of Fang. The Rat King approves.

4/5