Vicious Fun

America, 1983. Joel writes reviews for a horror magazine and believes he is an expert on the genre. He is in love with his flatmate; while following her new boyfriend he walks into the back room of a bar and sits down at the wrong meeting. The people in the room are serial killers and this is a support group. Joel cannot leave. Cody Calahan directs. It is a Canadian production. The idea is to make the genre speak in its own language. Joel keeps supplying horror film knowledge and none of it is any use; the killers explain their methods within the order of a meeting. The comedy comes out of that institutional register. The look and the music imitate the eighties: neon, synth score and grain, all deliberately produced. It is a characteristic instance of the retro horror wave that spread at the end of the 2000s. The best character is Carrie, the only woman among the killers and the only one who is actually good at it. Much of the second half rests on her. It was made cheaply, screened at genre festivals, never got wide distribution, and found a cult audience. Who it is for: viewers who like horror comedy and eighties aesthetics. Who it is not for: the violence is heavy and the humour is crude, and the final section is weakly choreographed with the budget visible on screen.