Lowlifes

Tubi original Lowlifes breathes some new life into the old 'city folk vs. Hillbillies' genre, blending comedy and gory horror to great effect. It's best to go into the film blind, so I'm not going to summarise the plot or mention any spoilers, suffice to say that it serves up some neat twists along the way.

Directors Tesh Guttikonda and Mitch Oliver deliver a fun movie that isn't to be taken seriously and their cast act accordingly, putting in enjoyably campy/comical turns. This doesn't mean that the horror is any less effective when it happens though: there's some genuinely nasty stuff in the film with plenty of graphic splatter along the way.

Don't watch this one expecting it to be a game changer -- I don't think the film-makers had such aspirations -- accept Lowlifes for what it is... a bloody good time with its severed braised tongue firmly in cheek.

Being honest I was skeptical when I found out this was a Tubi original I mean let's face it some of the programming on Tubi is scraping the bottom of the barrel But it turned out it was better than I would've expected I liked the role reversal The blood and gore all throughout the movie was amazing But the ending was a glorious chaotic spectacle I noticed a couple people in their reviews were saying something to the effect That the ending of the movie could make or break it Personally I thought the ending was fine I like it when movies throw me twists and turns that I'm not expecting and this movie gave me plenty of surprises.

I don't remember recently such an artistic/professional "suicide" like this. Director/writers came up with pretty good ideas. LOWLIFES somewhat grabs you by the throat, it's never boring, of course it's not that original and creative but for a 2024 horror movie, it's almost great. Characters are well written, actors do a good job, there are nice twists.

And then it goes down the drain. The ending was disgusting. Look, i could live with unsatisfying endings but this is not an art drama neither a crime thriller. This is something like a dark comedy with horror elements. You can't end your movie like this after all the things that happened. Writers wanted to end it unexpectedly, and i respect bold choices. But not in this movie. This movie DEMANDED a different ending.

Ending aside, this lose its steam during the last 20-ish minutes. It should have been at least 10 minutes shorter. Pace/rhythm got worse, and it was not that anxiety-inducing during those minutes. Something was off. It was bordeline funny and as it seems, unintentionally funny.

Actors were very good though. And the build up was good enough to make me invested.

The film seems to draw heavily from another horror film called "You're Next" which is one of the few decent American horror films of the last 25 years. Lowlifes is worth a watch because of strong performances from a few of the actors, especially the actor who plays the father, and several plot twists.

The story basically involves a road-tripping, normal-appearing family who come into contact with rather stereotypical and exaggerated redneck-type locals. The plot is anything but predictable, but again seems to draw inspiration from a horror movie known to horror enthusiasts but probably not to the general public. I agree with other reviewers that the ending was for lack of a better word disappointing.

Wow this was actually surprisingly competent to come out of Tubi but I'm not going to be the one complaining about it. I've never actually watched a Tubi original before having seen this film but I have used to streaming service quite a good bit due to its wide range of different films, but since it is a free streaming service that relies on ads I didn't expect it's original content to be all that great and I have a feeling the plethora of other originals they've released aren't really all that amazing - but I am fairly confident in saying that their newest horror film "Lowlifes" was actually quite a bit better than I had expected. It has a lot of things to like about it and despite it very clearly not being perfect and having some pretty noticeable flaws, the late majority of this is at the very least entertaining and more than violent enough to make for a good cannibal centric horror comedy experience.

I completely forgot that this movie wasn't your standard "redneck torture family" thing like you would expect from "The Hills Have Eyes" or "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" until around like thirty or so minutes into the movie the twist occurs and honestly I was somehow blindsided by it. In hindsight it is a very obvious twist but I wasn't paying attention nearly enough to the way it was progressing to get that, but I do believe that it is a really great flip on the usual way these things go and makes for a much more compelling narrative that somewhat falls off towards the end but never entirely nosedives. Although; if there is one thing I can very confidently say about this movie is that I did not enjoy its ending in the slightest, it really reminds me of like "Cabin Fever" so if you've seen that film you know exactly what it means... I don't personally like it but I don't think it's not well done as it does work but just aggravated me, so I can only take half a star off for that fact as this would probably be a four.

If there's one definitive plus I can give to this movie is that I found it to be insanely funny pretty much the entire way through, and that's not something I usually expect going in to horror comedies but almost every single joke in this film worked perfectly for me and that was partially due to just how not serious it takes itself but also the way all the jokes are delivered by their respective actors. It all flows together super neatly and this might be one of the funniest horror comedies I have seen in recent times, definitely up there for this decade and I am a believer that the comedic aspect of this film is clearly the best part of it as a whole. However; that's not to say it's the only good part as the rest is also pretty great, the acting for one is superb from start to finish.. Amanda Fix as Amy is a very clear standout example for the level of talent on display here and she plays conflicting emotions surprisingly well until that kind of fades away towards the end, Matthew MacCaull is probably one of the funniest people I have ever seen on screen and the way he goes about doing everything he does here is hilarious, plus a tiny role given to Richard Harmon who I personally know best from "Grace Encounters 2" but is probably most well known for his amazing role in the show "The 100".

Another really fantastic part about this movie was it's kills and the overall way they're shown - this is a pretty gory film and I can't say I was expecting that in the slightest. From the very first kill shown to us in full detail it is very clear that it handles its effects with care and is brutally disturbing whenever it does so. I mean it is a film revolving around a cannibalistic family so you would expect to see people getting eaten, killed and dismembered but the way it's shown is real gruesome and surprisingly detailed. There's one character who's whole deal for a while is that the favorite part of the human body for them to eat it the eyeballs, and that is both awesome and horrible, plus there's a really amazing scene of someone getting shot through the neck with a bow and arrow and it's exactly as cool and horrifying as it sounds. Definitely much better effects work here than I thought was gonna be present and left me fairly impressed the entire way through, and they never take a significant dip in quality or anything - leaving them visually impressive and compelling to watch, which is always a major plus watching a horror film like this.

Lowlifes is a Tubi original movie that's actually good for some reason? I never thought there would come the day where I would be able to somewhat confidently say that but I do actually think this is an above average horror/comedy that is worth checking out since it's free and super easily accessible. It's not something that's going to go blowing your socks off or anything but it's a wildly fun ride that is never once dull or uninteresting and leaves the viewer with a sense of intrigue and just the excitement of seeing how these two families are going to clash. At the very least I can say that this movie is impressively well made, from it's set designs, acting, and of course effects - this is a movie that I definitely recommend for anyone craving a dumb fun horror film but don't go expecting some masterpiece. It doesn't take itself seriously like ever and neither should you, it's an enjoyable experience and that's all I could really ask from it.