Shingles: The Movie

WARNING: Definitely not a movie for the faint of heart or for anyone that is easily offended!!

This movie is based on a few select books from the Shingles book series - and they hit the nail right on the head!! The movie is a crazy, gross, hilarious ride from start to finish and very on brand for the A&D guys!!

By the way, you should totally check out the Shingles series, the Authors & Dragons podcast and the Calamity Janes, and check out the authors' other books!! Trust me, you won't be disappointed!! The A&D podcast is how I found several of my favorite authors such as Rick Gualtieri, John Hartness, Drew Hayes, R E Carr, E M Kaplan, and so many others!!

Shingles: the Movie is a fun anthology of stories directed by Steve Rudzinski (the CarousHell series). In "Shingles the movie", we have the four cooter scouts sitting around a campfire telling stories while they're waiting for their scoutmaster to catch dinner.

The first story involves "Jimmy" and a zombie apocalypse. It's the shortest story and my least favorite.

Story number two features "Sloppy" the Ventriloquist dummy. It's pretty funny! The actor "Ben Dietels" reminds me of Ed Helms. Lol! Anyway the story is loaded with laughs and crude humor.

The third story involves Aliens crashing a fraternity party. Watch as the Aliens and the Frat compete against each other in beer games.

My favorite and the final story is about "Dusty the Gnome". He's a garden Gnome that poops cocaine! This is probably the most comical of the stories. You'll never look at garden Gnomes the same after this.

I'm not familiar with the Shingles books, so I came in as a fan of a couple the actresses.

Numerous times cast members seen moving in the background apart from the scene. For a horror film, it was not scary in the least and despite having gratuitous blood from zombies, it was a joke.

The ventriloquist material was pretty immature and lousy.

The videography was on the level of a high school play at best and really did not add much to the story. The trailer park scenes were appropriate given that "trailer park trash" would be my description for the production crew, videographers, and most of the actors in general. At nearly two hours, it was pretty much more than I could take during a single sitting.

I have long loved the books by the Authors and Dragons crew and learning that a Shingles Movie was coming absolutely made me giddy with anticipation.

This movie is hilarious, but kind of dumb. Like, Napoleon Dynamite dumb. It might take a couple of viewings to "get it".

Without spoiling the stories, I will say that most of them keep SUPER close to the books, but there are of course differences. (like none of the characters in the movies are "kids", that would be just too horrible)

You'll love Buick, You'll think Jimmy is a total tool. You will never look at garden gnomes or venquilitrist dummies the same way either!

My favorite short is probably Zombies Wrecked my Kegger, but I will say that Just Say Gnome is... Something else.

I only take off one star because some of the effects aren't very special, but it's a very thriftily made movie! Watch it. You'll have a blast.

This movie just isn't good. Unfortunately while the director manages to work with his budget, the end result is a haphazard mess with few to no scares and ultimately ends up being a snooze fest.

This would be much more paletteable if the director actually knew what horror was. Unfortunately (and unsurprisingly) the director seems to go for cheap scares and puts very little effort into the craft. As scathing as that may seem, I'm just trying to spare those who may blindly stumble upon this movie and think it may be worth watching. Not the case sadly. The film needs to be ironed out more if there is any hope of future for the director and his crew.