Jimmy and Stiggs review
Joe Begos is back with his most Joe Begos movie yet.
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
Jimmy and Stiggs
Directed by Joe Begos
Written by Joe Begos
Starring Joe Begos and Matt Mercer
Jimmy and Stiggs Review
While watching Joe Begos’s new film Jimmy and Stiggs I tried to imagine what it would be like to be a casual filmgoer who stumbled into a screening of the movie. Perhaps someone heard there was a movie out about an alien home invasion and thought…that sounds cool. Well, it is pretty cool…but in Begos’s hands it can also be…a lot. This fictional person I imagined likely got an eyeful of madness to a degree they weren’t prepared for. Madness you don’t typically see in a mainstream cinema. But…it’s a new age for horror. Joe Begos can paint the walls full of blood on the big screen now.
It isn’t the buckets of neon pink/red blood that makes Jimmy and Stiggs stand out from the usual mainstream cinema releases. Though there is an over-abundance of it flowing throughout the picture. The main takeaway from Jimmy and Stiggs is that you can make a movie that doesn’t quiet down for ninety straight minutes. I’m not saying that you should do that. But it’s now undeniable that you can. Jimmy and Stiggs is an assault on the sense that borders on annoying…and crosses to the wrong side of it repeatedly. Put simply, it’s obnoxious. And that makes it kind of special.
The story takes place in one setting and features only two characters. Human characters, anyway. Jimmy (Begos) is a filmmaker who has fallen out of favor since breaking up with his partner Stiggs (Matt Mercer). Their fracture came from Jimmy’s unrelenting alcohol and drug use. Stiggs got clean…and being around Jimmy just isn’t an option anymore. Jimmy is also a loud, unpredictable and volatile person. When Jimmy thinks he’s been visited by aliens…Stiggs has no choice but to check in on his old friend. Then the real nightmare begins.
Jimmy and Stiggs begins and ends with sequences shot in the first person. The initial one immediately tests your stomach for what’s to come. In Jimmy’s point of view, we are treated to his obnoxious behavior…and our first glimpse of an alien invasion. In his apartment. If the middle of Jimmy and Stiggs, which is shot like a traditional narrative film, was removed from the movie it would have felt completely at home in last year’s V/H/S/Beyond. It would have ranked a solid second in that found-footage anthology, for what it’s worth.
The middle of Jimmy and Stiggs is where the meat of the movie is. Both literally and figuratively. The alien home invasion is real…and now Stiggs is caught up in it. What follows is an hour or so of two men fighting with puppets, painting the walls with blood (both alien and their own) and dealing with the pain of whatever the aliens have implanted in their mouths. And, of course, arguing with each other. Loudly. Obnoxiously. Endlessly. Begos dials Jimmy up to 11 from the moment the movie starts. It’s an impressive accomplishment to keep the high level of energy that he has for the entire length of the film. Especially knowing that it’s going to be a major turnoff for so many people.
The alien puppets are often (purposely) hilarious. Watching Jimmy and Stiggs wrestle around with what look like high end stuffed animals somehow perfectly fits the movie’s wild tone. There are also some very fun practical effects too…but also lifeless puppets fighting grown men like it’s the accidental camp comedy Hobgoblins. When I tell you that Jimmy and Stiggs never quiets down…take that at its full meaning. It’s an hour and a half of Jimmy yelling. 90 minutes that never takes a breath. From first person to third person…Jimmy is a lot to take in.
When we last saw Joe Begos he was delivering killer animatronic Santa fun in Christmas Bloody Christmas. That was a really fun movie that understood it was best to strip away any extraneous plot and just let an animatronic Santa kill people. Jimmy and Stiggs mostly takes place over the course of one night…and doesn’t have room for anything but the alien home invasion. Yes, there is a character driven argument between Jimmy and Stiggs that runs throughout their battle…but that battle never stops long enough for it to become the focal point of the story. It’s just giving Jimmy more things to yell about. Jimmy might yell more than any character in the history of film.
I’m sure that won’t go unnoticed by casual and hardcore horror fans alike. They can all get a taste of Joe Begos on the big screen if they want to. Just prepare yourself. It’s as much as he’s ever Joe Begos’d. There are also a couple of fake trailers that run before the feature. They’re very amusing and set a nice tone for the feature itself. As if anything could prepare that casual viewer who stumbled in for what they were about to see and hear.
Scare Value
Look, you might hate Jimmy and Stiggs from beginning to end. I can’t deny that it requires a taste for non-stop, headache-inducing, frantic movement. Wall-to-wall screaming soaked in neon-tinted blood. If that is your flavor…Joe Begos just dropped your new favorite movie. The thing about reviews is that you can’t look at movies solely through the lens of what you like. You judge the work based on how successfully it does what it intends to do. Joe Begos’ Jimmy and Stiggs is about as good a Jimmy and Stiggs anyone could possibly make. It just also happens to be seasoned to my taste.
3.5/5
Jimmy and Stiggs Link
Buy tickets on Fandango
