Dan Berk and Robert Olsen direct Bill Skarsgård, Maika Monroe and Jeffrey Donovan in this indie thriller where two hapless crime kids break into the wrong house.

Echoing the early Coen Brothers, Bound and Ted Demme, this is the kinda showy little gem that used to get its directors noticed and at least offered a big budget swing at the A-List. These days your debut seemingly needs to be to Oscar nominated before you might be offered a franchise sequel but hopefully this has caught a cannier studio head’s eye over lockdown. A blackly comic game of cat and mouse between airhead gas station robbers and far more experienced, unhinged nasty pieces of work. Kyra Sedgwick ramps up her Baby Jane mature sexiness in a sinister bit of largess. Fighting it out for most memorable actor though is a titanic struggle between Maika Monroe and Jeffrey Donovan. The scream queen excels as the sweet but resourceful Jules (think an even more spaced out Bonnie or Alabama). Donovan, who is always great in small roles, relishes this maximum screen time as the smooth tongued dapper daddy who runs this house of kitsch horrors. Everyone is impeccably attired by costume designer Stacey Berman. There’s even a punky animated credit sequence.

7

Check out my wife Natalie’s Point Horror blog https://cornsyrup.co.uk

We also do a podcast together called The Worst Movies We Own. It is available on Spotify or here https://letterboxd.com/bobbycarroll/list/the-worst-movies-we-own-podcast-ranking-and/