Jimmy and Stiggs Review

After a couple of fake trailers for amusingly dumb horror flicks, it was a genuine surprise that the opening of the film was shot from Jimmy’s (writer/director Joe Begos) perspective. We’re along for the ride in real-time as Jimmy putters and mutters about his apartment, doing coke and smoking grass and downing whiskey and watching porn. While the shot does make these moments more engaging than they would be otherwise, the approach really starts to shine as the action begins. We feel his rising anxiety as a few small earthquakes shake his apartment. No big deal; this is L.A., after all. But quickly, paranoia gives way to reality as shit gets weird. His hallway turns into an infinite maze, hours pass in the blink of an eye, gravity throws him to the ceiling mere inches from his quick moving fan, and a few small, gray aliens attack him. When he wakes up, dazed from the insanity of the night before, we see his face for the first time. And we watch him resolve that if those motherfuckers return tonight, it will go down differently.

This provides a brief reprieve for the audience to prepare for what’s to come. That was just the initial offer, so you can bet that if it appealed to you in any way, you’ll be grinning ear to ear by the end. Ensuring things will get even crazier is the entrance of Stiggs (frequent Begos collaborator Matt Mercer), a childhood friend with whom Jimmy had a falling out a few months back. So even before the aliens return, blood is running hot, with the two men in each other’s faces and waving guns around and hurling accusations of poor character. They fight long enough for Stiggs to get trapped in the apartment by the onset of the night’s assault. It’s the perfect setup, ensuring that any gap in the external threat can be filled by the internal one. And once Jimmy becomes convinced the aliens are cloning people, the distrust becomes existential.

This is a midnight movie to its core, a sci-fi splatter-fest drenched in enough neon paint and goo to empty a warehouse (or at least a small hardware store). As such, the film isn’t exactly “gory”, at least not in the traditional sense; being aliens, their blood is a thick neon red-orange, and they have an exoskeleton instead of flesh. Sure, Jimmy’s apartment (which is incidentally Begos’ apartment) is covered from head to toe in alien viscera by the end. But combined with the ethereal haze that accompanies the invasion, the strobing of the multi-colored lights throughout the small space, and the unstable 16mm handheld camerawork, the result is far more hallucinatory and gross than it is terrifying. It’s more Hausu than Texas Chainsaw Massacre, while hemming closer to Mandy in tone.

This is achieved in part because everything is practical. Begos and his collaborators poured four years of blood, sweat, and tears into this project, and you can see every single late night and called in favor on screen. The aliens look fantastic, their creepy movements realized through a combination of robotics, puppets, high frame rate shots, miming combined with close ups to hide what probably looked a little silly in a wide, and just overall incredibly smart filmmaking. And some of the more dangerous but excellent looking moments were achieved utilizing the time-honored DIY filmmaking technique of “they just did the thing and hoped for the best”. When Jimmy picks up a chainsaw and starts going to town on the aliens, he’s using a real, working chainsaw to destroy the team’s creations. The same is true when he amputates his own arm (in case the tribute the Evil Dead series wasn’t clear enough). Safe? Absolutely not, as demonstrated by the variety of injuries Begos sustained while making the movie. But the result is undeniable.

It’s even more impressive how much mileage they get out of the single set. We only leave Jimmy’s two-room apartment for the final ten or fifteen minutes, which places us back between his ears for a few of the most intense moments of the story (including a truly showstopping final sequence). And yet, despite the aliens having literally removed all the exits à la Skinamarink, you never once find yourself thinking about the outside world. There’s far too much going on to allow for that. Besides, every single inch of that place is covered in bodily fluids and ripped apart, so you cannot possibly feel cheated.

Sure, the story’s a little thin, and there are a handful of threads that are limply introduced only to dead-end before they can add much to the story. There are a few flourishes that hint at bigger plans but never come to fruition, instead distracting you (albeit slightly) from the main event. It’s unclear exactly why we needed to hear him and his girlfriend (Riley Dandy) fight on the phone to open the film, and while the John Redgrave (James Russo) stuff does factor into Jimmy’s beliefs about what the aliens are doing, it’s a bit too slight to really make an impact.

But the film gets through all that by never losing sight of what it is. The dialog doesn’t aim to be high minded, it aims to capture two forty-ish year-old metalheads on a bender against forces they don’t understand. It’s grimy and grungy and gross. It makes no attempts to appeal to anyone, betting that if the marketing drew you in you’re already on board. It’s an absolute blast despite not being a comedy, has easily the best effects (practical or otherwise) I’ve seen in a low-budget film in quite some time, and features two lead characters who are super fun to witness despite clearly being nightmare people. If this doesn’t get you excited about what’s possible when a small group of super talented and passionate people throw all of their resources into a batshit vision, I don’t know what will.