Black Friday

This is a Christmas, horror comedy in typical B-movie style a la Bruce Campbell. I've read some of the reviews here and I think people mistakenly thought they were going to watch The Godfather or Alien. The criticisms sound like they were expecting a Spielberg or Scorsese cinematic masterpiece and they were shocked when ....it wasn't. It's a fun Christmas horror comedy driven by characters that are all flawed, parodies of those we all know in real life. It is fun to watch and fans of Bruce Campbell should give it a try. Will it win an Oscar? Not a chance! Is it going to revolutionize the film industry? Nope! Is it driven by an award winning, spell binding script? Heck no!

But will my husband and I watch many more times over the holidays to come? Yes! We! Will!

Plot

A group of toy store employees must protect each other from a horde of parasite infected shoppers.

Cast

The underrated Devon Sawa, stunning Ivana Baquero, Michael Jai White and the legend that is Bruce Campbell. Oh and Seth Green as the voice of a teddy bear, for some reason.

Verdict

I'll be honest, when I saw the stills and learned that Bruce Campbell was in it I thought here's a movie that's cashing in on the popularity of Evil Dead and is unofficially providing us with more. I was wrong, so very wrong.

Let me be clear in saying these are NOT deadites, and Campbell is great here but he's nothing more than a support character. Our leads are Sawa and Baquero who were great, but I'd got my hopes up seeing Campbell leading a ragtag group against evil not this.

The setting is interesting but underutilized, the cast are solid and a decent mix of characters, the creatures are rather bland and generic, the comedy is very hit and miss and overall I was left disappointed but still did have a decent enough time watching Black Friday despite its very blatant flaws.

The thing I believe that bothered me the most was how cheap it felt in places. Some of the cinematography and effects were unforgivably bad and there was no excuse for that.

Marginally above average but remember this is not Evil Dead, this is hardly a Campbell movie and appreciate its limitations.

Rants

Baquero was a joy to watch, I'm not familiar with her works beyond Pan's Labyrinth so seeing her as an adult was a delight. Decent little actress, I'd love to see her in more and she's changed her appearance to such an extent I don't even see Ofelia anymore. Am I alluding to plastic surgery, very likely.

Breakdown

Fun in places Solid cast Looks and feels cheap at times Not on the level you'll likely hope/expect.

It's crazy how movies are getting done with such lousy scripts, seriously.

There's a lot of work here in terms of production, they even got a good bunch of actors, none of them was half as bad as the script!

Cinematography was good and the practical effects were decent for the genre.

But the script is mediocre from the beginning to the end, the story is nothing original, true, but it's just an excuse to see how the characters survive the situation, it's been done before, simple stories, clever script. This isn't clever at all. Dialogs, action, pace, characters... everything fails here in that department.

Totally wasted potential. Again, I can't imagine how this script got greenlighted, somebody of all the people reading it must have noticed how bad was the writing.

It's ok if you want a dumb watch, but I'm sure you can find easily something better.

This wasn't amazing or anything but I had a good time. While I felt that there could have been more time developing the characters before the horror happened this was overall a solid survival horror. I thought all of the cast did a good job and it was great seeing Bruce Campbell in a role like this. The monster effects were fantastic and I enjoyed the climax. Not a masterpiece but an enjoyable way to spend an hour and 20 minutes.

Not once I've raised the corners of my mouth for a slight hint of a smile. The (first time movie) writer totally missed the humor in his writing. Writing comedy is an art and this could have been much better (maybe hire a comedian?) On the characters and story, the writing was bad also because the situation is handled as if the events happen every week which made it surreal & detached (in a bad way)... Also the music score gets annoying (its like a Home Alone score).. Now all this would not bothered me when the writing was good! The writer should've watched 1992 "Braindead" (my fav horror-comedy!) which has the absurdism, sarcasm and over the top gore this movie needed badly! Watch Braindead instead, avoid this!