OK, hypothetical reader, I get it. Here it is, New Years Eve. It’s the last day of 2023. It’s the time of year when the awards bait hits theaters. Yeah, I live outside a major city, so a lot of those awards bait movies won’t hit my neck of the woods right away, but why, at this point, am I writing a review for a horror comedy that came out in 2006? Short answer: I am curious about writer/director James Gunn’s directorial debut, and I had a lot to do yesterday. I could watch this one at home. Likewise, it was leaving Tubi at the end of the month.

I don’t regret the choice. The two awards bait movies in my area can be seen today and tomorrow before my winter holiday break ends.

Wheelsy, South Carolina is the sort of small town where the local police chief mans a speed trap with a deputy and spends most of the shift sleeping while his partner talks about how he can judge something’s speed within two miles an hour just by looking at it most of the time. Chief Bill Pardy (Gunn regular Nathan Fillion) is still carrying a torch for his ex Starla (Elizabeth Banks), a science teacher for the local high school, but she’s married to local rich guy Grant Grant (other Gunn regular Michael Rooker). The mayor (Gregg Henry) is an entitled asshole, and it’s deer-hunting season. Essentially, it’s a small town where nothing happens. Meanwhile, a meteorite hits outside of town, and when Grant heads out there with another woman, he’s infected with some sort of parasite.

From there, Grant’s body begins to change. He has a taste for meat and lots of it, and whatever he’s been infected with is, for lack of a better word, contagious. It isn’t long before most of the town is turned into these odd, hive-minded zombies, all working with both Grant and the alien parasite’s respective thoughts. Chief Pardy might be able to stop them if he can figure out what’s going on with whoever is left over to help, but this is a James Gunn movie: the misfits will need to save the day if anyone can.

Yeah, this is a James Gunn movie with the expected level of gross, often violent humor and odd jokes that probably wouldn’t work in any other director’s movie. The parasites do feel like a beta version of Starro the Conqueror from Gunn’s The Suicide Squad, but the body horror of what these things do to their victims, not all of whom are human, is something that points to Gunn’s past with the infamous Troma Films (and yes, the company founder Lloyd Kaufman has a cameo). This is a movie where a character will ask the hero to kill him, and the hero won’t even hesitate to do so because the character doing the begging was an asshole even before he was infected by a parasite and a teenage girl is only able to save her own life because she had her nails done. A Chekov’s gun prop may not actually be all that useful, and the heroes may only prevail through dumb luck rather than anything like skill. It’s a fun movie.

That said, this is still Gunn’s first movie, and it somewhat shows. It’s not quite on the level I expect of Gunn, but I also know he’s going to get better because, well, every other movies I’ve seen that he’s directed has been better. It may not even be all that surprising that Gunn got the Marvel job later on, though it may be the superior Super helped even more there. What I have always liked about Gunn’s work is it is a unique sort of take on whatever sort of story he’s telling, one where lovable losers prevail despite their own deficiencies and there’s still a chance for a heartfelt moment. It’s why I’m not at all worried about Gunn’s upcoming take on Superman. But everyone has to start somewhere, and for Gunn, it was the expected sort of weirdness.

Grade: B


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