Slaxx

First there were movies. Then there were bad movies. Then there were movies that were so bad, they were good again. Then there were movies that knew they were bad. And we knew they knew. And they knew we knew they knew. And this brings us to Slaxx.

It's not the first film to knowingly embrace it's own stupidity. Coming in not quite as juvenile as Thankskilling, while not as meta as Rubber, Slaxx attempts to maintain the surface veneer of a genuine horror movie. Except it's a horror movie about pants, which aren't scary, cause they're pants, and this is where it becomes a comedy. The humour mostly plays off the deadpan reactions to the ludicrous scenario, and for the most part it lands.

Seeing as it's a parody, it can't really be faulted for it's rote characters. The overly obvious final girl seems necessary for the genre exercise, though the insufferable influencer hits the valley girl stereotype a little too on the nose and ends up being even more annoying than intended. The store manager is similarly over the top and maybe needlessly cartoonish, though his blatant denial of the obvious is the source of some of the best laughs.

I feel neutral about the moral bend of the film. Obviously, something this goofy doesn't need to have any truly deep things to say, and "sweatshops are bad" is pretty surface level social commentary. However, it's peppered in sparingly enough to not detract from the main attraction, and like, sweatshops are bad. Even though we seemed to have abandoned the cause in the 90s since we don't want to have to pay more for our shoes, it doesn't make it any less awful. Maybe a movie about killer jeans will finally wake up the world to enact long overdue social change! (It won't)

I love a good horror comedy. The idea of watching a movie about a pair of killer pants doesn't sound stupid to me at all.

This movie was pretty dumb. If you're going to make a movie about something clearly dumb, there's gotta be something else to hook the audience more than just "Wouldn't it be funny if pants killed people?" The pants had the most character of anyone in the movie, and that's saying something. Every character is an uninteresting, bland caricature of a trope., the plot is limp, and there's not a single line of comedy in the movie. Watch something else.

Right before a new product launch, a killer pair of jeans eats all the staff at an upscale hipster store. The new girl has to stop the pants from getting out and killing more.

Here is a movie that had a nice over the top premise and manages to botch it in almost every way. First of all, it was shot way too drab and self-serious. The acting was all over the top goofy, and the attempts at a political message were way too heavy handed for what they were making. If you want to make a "Bad good" B movie you have to treat it seriously in presentation but lean into the goofiness, not do what this did and treat it goofy in presentation and lean into the seriousness. Tonally opposite of what it needed to be. Waste of a tremendous premise and a few cute scenes. BLEH.

A cursed pair of form fitting blue jeans winds up on the shelf of a cheesy corporate clothing emporium and terrorizes any of the employees who dare to try them on as they set up for a major sale.

There's a lot of fun stuff about Slaxx and it works for about the first 50/60 minutes, but the last act runs out of steam right as it should be swinging from the rafters and it lost me.

There's a tinge of interesting social commentary, but starts trying to get a little too serious after an hour of absurdist humor and gore and the tones don't match. It's still worth a watch for fans of cheesy, funny horror movies.

Generally I like social messages, I like it when people realize that they can change things, even with the smallest effort. And maybe this movie achieves to change some peoples mind on buying clothes every other day. Cheap clothes that is (I won't even mention the stores that sell them). So making a movie about a Jeans that is out for blood (literally) is as far out as it sounds. There is nothing more to add to that.

But the movie itself (if you can deal and dig all the violence) is quite cliche. And the finger pointing and over the top characters will either work for you or against you/the movie. It is tough to sympathize with anyone in this (even with the explanation given) and painting them as one dimensional as possible does not add to that either. If you either don't mind and just want to enjoy some rather fine blood and special effects, good. Maybe the message makes it all good for you .. but there will be quite a few that probably will just plainly be annoyed by most of the movie ... just a fair warning. Overall I would rate it decent myself, all things considered