Holy Shit! review.
Explosives, a ticking clock and a porta potty combine to form the locked door thriller Holy Shit!. Proving once again that you don’t need more than a man stuck in a toilet to make a good movie.
Holy Shit! is streaming exclusively on Screambox on March 21, 2023.
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
Holy Shit!
Directed by Lukas Rinker
Written by Lukas Rinker
Starring Thomas Niehaus, Gedeon Burkhard, Olga von Luckwald and Rodney Charles
Holy Shit! Review
Following in the grand tradition of Stalled and Glorious…Holy Shit! brings us another in the growing line of locked in the toilet movies. I can’t think of any other locked in the bathroom movies…but to be fair, it’s crazy that I can think of three. Holy Shit! ups the ante by locking its protagonist in a porta potty. A tipped porta potty surrounded by explosives set to go off within an hour. If that doesn’t sound like your kind of movie…I’m not sure how you found this website.
Frank (Thomas Niehaus) wakes up inside of a porta potty, steel rebar having run through his arm. His phone is out of reach inside the toilet and there is no one within earshot. All he can see is a woman tied up outside the porta potty who may or may not be alive. All he can hear is a PA system counting down the time until the explosives around the bathroom are detonated.
When you’re making a lose budget move it’s a good idea to rely on the basics. A ticking clock works no matter how much money you have. Frank’s entrapment is only going to be interesting for so long…both narratively and visually. Holy Shit! gets a lot of mileage out of its expiration date.
Most of the film is spent trapped inside a tight space with Frank. While he’s trying to work out an escape plan we learn pieces of backstory explaining how he arrived in this record scratch situation. You’ll be able to figure out where the story is going very quickly…and the movie smartly doesn’t play up a mystery so much as it uses that you’ll see the “twist” coming and plays its reveal for fun.
We learn more about Frank too. An architect who has neglected the woman he loves working on this assignment. There’s a surprising emotional depth reached as the clock ticks down and a desperate Frank finds himself filled with regret. But I don’t want to make Holy Shit! sound like a downer or a straight drama…there is a lot to laugh about and some effective thrills as the story ramps up.
There is a very prominent gore effect featured early and often in Holy Shit! and it is a very good one. You have to believe that Frank is completely incapable of moving from his position…and the steel rebar that has completely run through his arm more than does the trick. There’s some nasty blood and gore whenever he tries to free himself. It looks great and works perfectly.
The only problem with Holy Shit! is that its climax goes on too long. The movie introduces some characters that come into view after a certain point…providing a bit of a play in front of Frank’s (and our) eyes. It all gets a bit too convenient and runs a little bit too long. There is a good scenery chewing performance by the obvious villain of the piece…but the third act takes the “less is more” lessons of the first two acts and tries to do the opposite.
That said, Holy Shit! builds tension while having fun and has an excellent payoff…eventually. The ending is great…you’ll just wish it had come a bit sooner. The personal story of a man trapped in a toilet (and why) somehow spirals into scenes of four or five characters interacting outside of the porta potty. It’s a choice at odds with the bulk of the movie…but there are some very fun moments because of it.
Holy Shit! is another successful entry in the growing “locked in the bathroom” series of films. Stalled plays a zombie apocalypse outside of a locked stall. Glorious crafts an end of the world story for a man stuck in a rest stop bathroom. Holy Shit restricts its hero even further and plays out a ticking time bomb story just outside of view. It does so very effectively and might be the best of what I’m dubbing the Locked in the Toilet trilogy.
Scare Value
I don’t know why “locked in the toilet” movies are their own subgenre. I also don’t know why they always seem to work. Holy Shit! carries on the proud tradition…proving again that less really is more. Aside from a climax that goes on a bit too long…there isn’t much you could do to improve upon the concept here. A fun time from start to finish.
3.5/5
Holy Shit! Link
Streaming on Screambox March 21
Holy Shit! Trailer
If you enjoyed this review of Holy Shit! check out Yellow Dragon’s Village
