Soho Horror Film Festival 2024 Coverage
Scared Shitless review
A B-movie plot uplifted by an A-level everything else.
Festival reviews will not contain spoilers
Scared Shitless
Directed by Vivieno Caldinelli
Written by Brandon Cohen
Starring Steven Ogg, Daniel Doheny, Chelsea Clark, Mark McKinney, Julian Richings, Marty Adams and Marica Bennett
Scared Shitless Review
Genre film festivals are known for their strange selections. They are the perfect delivery system for the odd impulses of independent filmmakers to screen their projects for a receptive audience. If I had a nickel for every crazy movie that I reviewed at these festivals, I’d have…several nickels. Scared Shitless certainly has its fare share of oddity in the mix. It’s also one of the rare genre festival entries that feels like it would be embraced by a more mainstream audience.
That last sentence says a lot without saying anything…so let me explain. Mainstream audiences…even mainstream horror audiences (the people that make Blumhouse’s last two years of dreck successful) require a certain shine on their horror. They’ll be more willing to accept something wild or crazy if it comes in a package that looks like what they’re accustomed to. Night Swim and Imaginary might be total crap…but they’re shiny enough crap to turn major profits. The same audiences would watch a creature feature about an apex predator who preys on an apartment complex through their toilets…as long as has that familiar professional sheen. Scared Shitless does. It’s also vastly superior to Night Swim and Imaginary.
Despite the professional sheen, fun creature effects and great performances…Scared Shitless is still, at heart, a movie about a toilet monster. I mean that in the most positive way such a statement can be made. This is a B-movie on the page with the feel of a AAA movie on the screen. That’s a lethal combination for lovers of a good old fashioned creature feature.
Don (Steven Ogg) and his germophobic son Sonny (Daniel Doheny) are called to an apartment complex for what is supposed to be a routine plumbing job. There’s something evil in the pipes, however. A science experiment has broken loose…and is working its way through the apartment building plumbing system…leaving dead bodies in its wake.
Scared Shitless is full of fun gore effects. The creature’s slimy design is excellent. It’s like a pipe-sized Graboid from the Tremors franchise. It’s a vicious killing machine. The apartment buildings that it enters end up coated in blood. Those apartment dwellers are all secret freaks too, it must be said. From the mad scientist who created it to some S&M role-playing seniors.
Our lead characters are almost as fun as the creature itself. Steven Ogg (known to at least two generations as Trevor in GTA V) gives a fun performance as a loving father as dumb as he is tough. Daniel Doheny’s Sonny’s problem with germs makes his role as a plumber who finds dismembered members and other assorted body parts and creature eggs in the pipes a fun one. Chelsea Clark’s Patricia represents the apartment building’s interest and serves as a love interest for Sonny. They have great chemistry. Watching Patricia go from concern about the building’s safety to eager creature hunting is a delight.
Scared Shitless lives in two worlds. It has everything that B-movie fans are looking for. It’s fun, funny, gory and wild. A toilet monster devours multiple people while some hapless heroes try to stop it. The movie also feels a lot more like something you’d see at your local theater chain than most of the films that find their way to genre film festivals. It’s a cut above the usual B-movie fare in production quality, effects work, script and acting talent. Wherever Scared Shitless ends up…make it a point to experience the fun for yourself.
Scare Value
While it has enough weirdness to earn its spot in this festival lineup, Scared Shitless is easily the most mainstream accessible feature film in the bunch. An apex predator stalking the inhabitants of an apartment building through their toilets? Sign me up twice. A fun movie that infuses quality into every aspect of the decidedly B-movie plot.
