Prime Time: Scared Shitless (2024)

The story of a plumber (Don, played by Steven Ogg) and his germophobic son, Sonny (Daniel Doheny), Scared Shitless is the kind of horror comedy you can easily imagine being pretty good when you think about the main elements. It has decent lead cast members (including Chelsea Clark and Marcia Bennett in main roles), it largely keeps all of the action in one location, and there are some decent practical effects bringing the central creature to life. 

Everything starts when Don and Sonny head along to an apartment building for a standard job. Don is trying to get Sonny to conquer his germophobia, and he thinks having him as his apprentice might just help. It turns out that their job isn't actually your usual plumbing job though, not when a creature seems to be moving around some of the pipes. Patricia (Clark) works in the building and wants discretion, but she may end up helping Don and Sonny when they all realise just how big a problem they might have on their hands.

Written by Brandon Cohen, expanding his short from a few years ago, Scared Shitless isn't helped by the fact that it's just a bit too under-written. Cohen has a fun idea at the heart of things, and benefits from the casting, but there's nothing here that's as funny or gruesome as it could be. Director Vivieno Caldinelli does well enough with the material, but what was needed was a much bigger selection of disposable characters and some more moments of bloody mayhem. Or maybe even some excessive amounts of fecal waste.

Ogg is a lot of fun in his role, being amusingly dry and dour for most of the runtime. Doheny plays his part well, being squeamish and jittery without spending every other minute fainting at the sight of anything that could contaminate his safe personal bubble. Clark is very easy to warm to, Bennett is a sweet and lovely resident who you don't want to see come to any harm, and the few other main characters are played by Lorna Wilson, Marty Adams, Donald Tripe, Mark McKinney, and Brynn Godenir. You may think that presents a decent selection of victims, but the film needed more bodies to be put in serious danger.

Undemanding horror comedy fans will find enough to enjoy here, especially when it comes to the presentation of the creature effects, but those who have seen a lot of films in this vein (and I count myself in that demographic) will be disappointed by the lack of creativity and style on display. Everything is okay, but nothing ever becomes more than okay. You can pick something better for your first choice when lining up an evening of viewings. If you're in a good mood then you could pick this as a secondary option. It might turn out to be a decent number two. 

5/10

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Prime Time: The Escort (2016)

Michael Doneger plays Mitch, a young man who isn't where he wants to be in life, having just been fired from his job, as well as receiving constant criticism from his best friend, JP (Tommy Dewey), about his slight sex addiction issue. Tasked with presenting a worthwhile piece of journalism to secure a new job, Mitch ends up involved with Natalie, a high-class, well-educated escort who might actually cause Mitch to reflect on his own life as he finds out more and more about her.

What you get here isn’t new, and it is something we will see again and again. The Escort, despite trying to appear much more risqué than other films it could sit alongside, is a standard rom-com that had two seemingly incompatible characters realising just how well they can work together.

Director Will Slocombe tries his best, walking a fine line to portray some of the sexual encounters without it feeling gratuitous or too much like simple titillation, and he also seems to be working hard to make the best end product possible on a relatively low budget. There aren’t really any big names to help things along (although Bruce Campbell is very well used in his small supporting role, playing Mitch’s father) and the tone throughout is never radically altered in favour of an “easier sell”.

As admirable as not taking the easy option is, writer Brandon Cohen (fleshing out the story idea from Doneger) also does everyone a slight disservice by skirting around moments that could have easily increased the comedy quotient of the film. As already mentioned, Campbell is great, but he’s only onscreen for a few scenes. The same could be said for the character played by Dewey, someone who could have added some more friction and laughs, but is instead underused. And a cursing little sister (played by Rachel Resheff)? Yep, underused. The same goes for a landlord at the end of his patience (played by Juan Carlos Cantu). On the one hand, I get it. Keep the focus on Doneger and Fonseca. And try to stop this from feeling too close to a teen sex comedy. On the other hand, a rom-com really needs the rom and the com, and the latter could have really helped the former.

The leads are decent, but there’s a sad lack of chemistry between them. It is the supporting cast who have all the fun though, with everyone I just mentioned above doing generally great work. Dewey is probably the least effective of the main cast members, but that is the fault of a script that does even less with him than it does with the others. There are also a number of actors doing their best “major douchebag” turns while paying for the company of Fonseca’s character, which I guess helps to make her like our leading man more, by default.

Although I personally didn’t think the film needed to miss so many opportunities for laughs, I appreciate the attempt to present some young adults discussing various approaches to sex in a positive and open way. The Escort may not be a film to love, and I doubt I will ever rewatch it, but it certainly provides more talking points than your average rom-com. There just wasn’t quite enough honey coating the underbaked platter of genitalia-shaped cookies at the heart of it. And there’s another sentence I never thought I would write.

6/10

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