Film Review: Black Friday (2021)

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SYNOPSIS:

On Thanksgiving night, a group of disgruntled toy store employees begrudgingly arrive for work to open the store at midnight for the busiest shopping day of the year. Meanwhile, an alien parasite crashes to Earth in a meteor. This group of misfits led by store manager Jonathan (Bruce Campbell) and longtime employee Ken (Devon Sawa) soon find themselves battling against hordes of holiday shoppers who have been turned into monstrous creatures hellbent on a murderous rampage on Black Friday.

REVIEW:

Black Friday was directed by Casey Tebo, and written by Andy Greskoviak.

The movie opens with Monty (Lonnie Farmer) hanging a Black Friday Sale banner in the store. Monty finds something he probably wishes he didn’t find. We barely get Thanksgiving-related horror films but Black Friday, that’s a REAL nightmare. If you work or have worked in customer service, “may the force be with you” and “God speed.”

I mean Bruce Campbell, Devon Sawa, and Michael Jai White, Ivana Baquero, and Ryan Lee battling together. It’s more than awesomeness.

Devon Sawa has a great film resume including Final Destination, Idle Hands, and Hunter Hunter, which by the way, if you haven’t seen Hunter Hunter?! Go watch Hunter Hunter after or before Black Friday. He’s also starring in the new Chucky series on Syfy/USA Network.

Bruce Campbell’s resume… Army of Darkness, Bubba Ho-Tep, The Evil Dead, and it goes on and on.

Devon plays Ken.  Ken goes to drop off his kids and then picks up Chris played by Ryan Lee from Goosebumps, Super 8, Dimension 404. They are heading to work to get ready for Black Friday. Side note: I once had a woman tell me that she hopes “me and my whole family dies” because “Santa” couldn’t deliver her packages from UPS to her kids on Christmas Day exactly. I mean, tis the season.

Michael Jai White plays Archie. Lou (Christopher Mikael) is the funny delivery truck driver. Watch out for the Chucky. That was pretty epic. We also meet Marnie played by Ivana Baquero who has been in everything from Pan’s Labyrinth and The New Daughter which oddly enough featured pods and hills, and lots of strangeness.

All of the employees are getting ready for the store to open. Jonathan (Bruce Campbell) delivers a speech over the intercom.

Emmett (Louie Kurtzman) “You can call me, Em.” I don’t know if these are intentional but the little things are amazing. Jonathan tells Brian (Stephen Peck) to let “unleash the beast.” This is the most accurate representation of Black Friday.

Customer service workers, you are under-appreciated and you deserve to smile for real, not just our fake customer service, “How may I help you” delirious smiles. Poor Chris, he’s not into the germs, and it’s about to get really messy.

Black Friday is funny and scary accurate, I mean minus the parasite people. The customers are infected by something… “next level bath salts shit.” That could be it. Jonathan is worried about the store closing and apparently the police have voicemail.

It’s funny because companies won’t shut down. The place could be on fire or smell like gas and you are expected to keep doing your job. Anita is the cheerleader for the company, she’s employee of the month, the happy employee, the employee companies love.

Michael Jai White has starred in some great films, Black Dynamite, Spawn, The Dark Knight, and more. His character Archie has a few ideas, and goes into bad ass mode. Like, I stated earlier, I’m not sure if any of this is intentional but there are great little homages for this cast.

Let’s take a moment and discuss the special effects. The egg sac Gremlin type things are wild and neon pink. Lou the truck driver’s make-up is crazy.

Not only are they working Black Friday, they don’t even get a holiday bonus for all of this. You deal with parasite eating customers and no holiday bonus.

This group makes it to the back storage room. They all share war-store stories and then fight, of course. They have to fight to get out of the store. I’m not sure if there is a technical name for these parasite people but they look insanely awesome.

Bruce Campbell and Devon Sawa need to be in more movies together. Ugh, Brian you are a horrible person. I’m going to have to agree with Marnie. The neon sac Gremlin egg thing is gigantic now, like Stay Puft Marshmallow Man in Ghostbusters gigantic. The giant neon parasite leader is pissed, like Godzilla/King Kong battle pissed. Make sure to watch the movie to find out what happens.

Andy Greskoviak delivered a wild story, and Casey Tebo did a great job directing. The cast is great.

Grab some popcorn and a drink, and enjoy this movie, it’s a fun monster movie.