Jimmy and Stiggs, 2024.
Directed by Joe Begos.
Starring Joe Begos, Matt Mercer, Riley Dandy, Jason Eisener, James Russo, Josh Ethier.
SYNOPSIS:
A pair of stoner misfits get trapped in an apartment with alien invaders.
Jimmy and Stiggs is one of those movies that probably seemed like a good idea on paper. You can imagine writer/director Joe Begos writing down all the things that would need to include in a low budget alien invasion movie set in one location, the lack of money meaning he would have to get creative and create a sense of location without any fancy camera tricks, the creature and gore effects would be crude but some snazzy ‘80s-style neon lighting could help fix that, and the gag-heavy script would help iron out any wrinkles that the limited budget couldn’t stretch to.
Okay, that last one might be a problem, unless 80-odd minutes of two ‘characters’ who may as well be Beavis and Butthead repeatedly calling each other insults that rhyme with ‘mocksucker’ is what warms your heart. If so, then you are in for a treat.
Begos plays Jimmy Lang, a filmmaker who isn’t having much luck on the work front and is consoling himself with booze and drugs. After a particularly heavy bender, during which he consumes copious amounts of narcotics whilst watching the news – which is never a good thing – Jimmy blacks out. Upon awakening he starts to believe that he had been abducted by aliens, and said aliens are now trying to get into his apartment, so he calls his old friend Stiggs (Matt Mercer), a who has been sober for six months and really could do without Jimmy’s incoherent ramblings about aliens kidnapping us and taking over our bodies, but Stiggs comes over anyway, the two rekindle their friendship (sort of) and then the madness begins.
And begin it does, not letting up for the whole of the running time – at all. You may argue that is a good thing, as you came to see ‘80-style gore and mayhem and that is exactly what you get; again, if so then you are in for a treat. However, if the idea of two knuckleheaded stoners with the vocabulary of your average high school American football team stumbling around a neon-lit apartment as puppets that look like melted E.T. moulds get pulled around on strings whilst coloured goo gets flung around like custard pies at a clown convention sounds a bit too much like a sketch for a TV show that didn’t get used because it wasn’t actually very funny, then you are not far off the mark.
Okay, that might be oversimplifying it a little, as there is some POV camerawork here that is quite fun and the first couple of alien kills are the sort of thing to have a giggle at on a Friday night after the pubs have kicked out, but after about 20 minutes of it the joke is done, we’ve had our fix of 1980s straight-to-video silliness and we can move on, but Joe Begos doesn’t and it carries on for another hour. The chemistry between Begos and Mercer is good, and the whole thing does put you in mind of something that Simon Pegg and Nick Frost might have done 25 years ago (except they would have had more actual gags and not so much swearing), but for a feature-length movie there is not a lot here after the first few minutes that could have been axed and what was left played out as a skit, a short or a special feature on the disc of a different movie that isn’t quite so one-note, loud and obnoxious.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Chris Ward
