Chattanooga Film Festival 2025 Coverage
Itch! review
An itchy apocalypse breaks out around a local store.
Festival movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
Itch!
Directed by Bari Kang
Written by Bari Kang
Starring Douglas Sterling, Bari Kang, Patrick Michael Valley, Monica de Oliveira, Mia Ventura Lucas and Ximena Uribe
Itch! Review
The one location story is a staple of independent horror cinema. It’s a fine example of working smartly within the confines of one’s budget. The quickest way for a low-budget movie to go off the rails is to write a script in need of a big budget and then trying to make it without one. Setting the bulk (if not all) of your story inside one spot cuts down on costs…and pushes you to be more creative within the space you have. It’s hardly a new concept. George A. Romero’s breakout masterpiece Night of the Living Dead mostly takes place inside of a farmhouse. Obviously, Romero shot pieces elsewhere. The local cemetery, a basement in a different location, and he sure utilized those empty fields around town…but Night of the Living Dead is the movie that paved the way for something like Itch!.
The influence is obvious. A zombie-like outbreak occurs and traps survivors inside of a fortified location, in this case a department store. Tensions between survivors prove to be as dangerous as the infection outside (that will inevitably make its way in). Like I said…obvious. But effective. People wouldn’t keep repurposing the concept if it wasn’t. The Mist didn’t apologize for its fractured society inside a grocery store. Hell, Romero’s own Dawn of the Dead traps survivors in a mall and lets the mayhem commence around them.
Jay (writer/director Bari Kang) leads the cast of survivors. He’s trying to protect his daughter from threats both external and internal. She hasn’t spoken since the death of her mother. Their estranged relationship is at the center of Itch!. What’s outside the center is a unique outbreak that will have you scratching your head…and not out of confusion. The infection in Itch! is exactly what it sounds like. You start scratching. Eventually, you scratch yourself to death. If that was the end of it…Itch! would be a decently horrific Covid allegory. Not that we need any more of those. It isn’t the end, however. You scratch yourself to death…and then you come back. You literally itch yourself into a zombie.
As with all these kinds of stories…infections and zombies aren’t the only danger around. Robbers arrive at the store immediately to throw guns and untrustworthy survivors into the mix. In fact, their arrival leads to a ticking clock when someone is shot. The survivors have the resources to survive quite a while inside the store. Saving a gunshot victim…not so much. Other people are always the most immediate threat in an apocalypse.
The outer threat in Itch! is a regenerative parasite. Which means if you…say…store dead bodies in the basement they will inevitably come back to life. And, given the nature of the parasite, it’s only a matter of time until someone gets sick. Jay has his work cut out for him. Keeping his daughter safe from more threats than anyone can stay on top of. No way of knowing which threat will be the next one to step to the forefront. Itch! isn’t breaking a lot of new ground in the one location in an apocalypse subgenre…but it fully understands what makes it work. Layering multiple dangers on top of each other and knowing any one of them could strike at any moment.
Kang also understands that each of these threats needs to be deeper than simply existing. Those robbers have a personal connection to the owner of the store…Jay’s father. Jay’s daughter isn’t just a traumatized girl…she has a penchant for violently acting out. Biting people seems to be her favorite. A fun habit to have in a zombie apocalypse. The infection itself is interesting. Everyone scratches themselves. Especially when you’re told there’s a vicious infection spreading around you. You’ll be hard pressed to find anyone not itching themselves at any moment. It’s when you can’t stop after ten seconds that everyone will know you’ve become infected. Itch! uses that to build tension between characters and suspense within their story.
Itch! doesn’t always present these appreciated levels of depth in the most elegant ways. Sometimes an information dump occurs that feels unnatural enough to pull you out of the world building for a moment. But it’s better to have it than not. There are reasons to care about the people who we suspect will (mostly) become fodder for the interesting infection that Itch! is doling out. Besides…any more that can make you repeatedly catching yourself scratching yourself, giggling about it, and then go back to scratching has a level of immersion worth checking out.
Scare Value
Itch! scratches the right spots for a movie about being locked in while all Hell breaks loose around you. A bit of Night of the Living Dead and The Mist vibes with an added ick factor. There’s enough personal conflict to survive the night…even if we’ve seen most of what Itch! is doing before. If you enjoy these types of movies…Itch! delivers a solid one.
