Black Friday

If you're after a fun little holiday thrill with some laughs thrown in, Black Friday might be the movie for you.

Sure there's no character development, and the plot gets a little ridiculous at times but you aren't watching a B movie for character development of academy award level writing.

Black Friday doesn't take itself too seriously, and neither should you. For a small budget movie the skin work is great.

It was great to see Devon Sawas (Final Destination) all grown up and Bruce Campbell is funny as ever.

When trying to imagine Black, Friday, think Netflix comedy Superstore, if the store was attacked by aliens.

I have to admit, I wasn't too keen to watch this... when I saw that Devon Sawa (Final Destination) was in it, as was Bruck Campbell, I gave it a go. I have to say, while you won't achieve nirvana, nor discover the meaning of life, give it a go. It was better than many other movies with higher IMDB ratings, and certainly doesn't take itself seriously, almost parodying itself.

On a day off, and at a loose end, I microwaved a bag of popcorn, sat back with a couple of beers, turned my brain off and to be honest, I actually didn't mind it.

Give it a go.

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.

Bruce Campbell is the only redeeming quality of Black Friday. Yes, the production is okay, the cast too, but the humor just does not work very well and the horror is at most okayish. On paper a mix of Blob, Superstore and a buddy horror comedy a la Shaun of the Dead may look good but the execution meanders something on the edge of average and below average. What I miss mostly is some unique spark. Also there never is really some suspense like for example in the story of The Mist. Exact rate: 3 + 1 for Mr. Campbell's solid performance.