Studio: Fangoria
Director: Joe Begos
Writer: Max Brallier, Matthew McArdle
Producer: Josh Ethier, Amanda Presmyk, Dallas Sonnier
Stars: Stephen Lang, William Sadler, Martin Kove, David Patrick Kelly, Sierra McCormick, Tom Williamson, Travis Hammer, Dora Madison, George Wendt, Fred Williamson
Review Score:
Summary:
A grizzled group of war veterans battles a vicious drug dealer’s gang when ravenous junkies besiege their VFW hall bar.
Review:
By design, “VFW” has the dark heart and skeezy soul of a gritty, late night B-movie from the 1980s. It may be set in the 1980s too. I’m not sure. Everyone drives older cars, VHS tapes play for entertainment, cigarettes come out of vending machines, and no one has a cellphone. Yet one old man takes a moment to jokingly bemoan “millennials,” which wasn’t a thing until the 21st century, so you figure it out.
Whatever era it takes place in, title text tells us that in this alternate past, present, or future, America’s opiod crisis has peaked. With junkies hooked on a gnarly new drug nicknamed ‘hype,’ cities have decayed into poverty-stricken war zones.
After a young girl burns a deadly drug dealer by stealing his stash, one of those war zones spills over into a small VFW hall. Crusty and cantankerous, the six grizzled war veterans bellied up to the bar just wanted to drink beer and affectionately insult each other before heading out to a strip club. With the girl choosing their hall as a hideout, the men discover the night’s new itinerary now includes fighting off drug-dealing thugs and drug-addled hypers as psychos assault their favorite watering hole.
That’s all there is to “VFW’s” plot. No twists, no turns, and not really any side arcs either. The story doesn’t particularly demand additional depth anyway. All it really wants to do is set up scenes for filmmaker Joe Begos and his buddies to go ape sh*t with bone-crunching, blood-gushing mayhem as personalities from pop culture’s yesteryear stomp skulls, blow up bodies, and chainsaw their way through a goopy practical FX extravaganza.
Begos sticks with the same style as his previous film “Bliss” (review here), with a framework that’s just as flighty, but at least satisfying for having an identifiable narrative purpose. If “Bliss” was your jam, you’ll find “VFW” wading in mirrored waters of neon-hazed seediness and heavy metal rage without the arthouse miasma. Several actors overlap in both films, as do people responsible for sights and sounds like cinematographer Mike Testin and composer Steve Moore. If I didn’t know better, I’d wonder if both movies filmed simultaneously.
If you’re burned out on Joe Begos joints, “VFW” won’t blow as much smoke up your shirt. Begos clearly has his thing. He and longtime collaborators including Josh Ethier and Graham Skipper are popular, accessible personalities in horror’s offscreen social circle. Fans appreciate their unabashed love for throwback horror and indulgent habit of brashly celebrating old-school splatter with explosive effects. There’s a sincere “friends and family” vibe to their projects, which are like classic Fangoria magazine covers come to life, and audiences enjoy being indirectly included in that sense of camaraderie.
Personally speaking though, the atmosphere and attitudes that identify a Joe Begos movie seem to have run their creative course. I don’t see significant evolution between his 2013 debut feature “Almost Human” (review here) and “VFW” several years later. It’s cool to have a signature style. But throw “The Mind’s Eye” (review here) into the mix and you have four films that have always intentionally imitated their influences (“Scanners,” “Assault on Precinct 13,” etc.), but now recycle from each other too.
The synth score renaissance should be a dot in horror’s rearview by now. It’s still something Begos relies on to give his films their specific texture, but I couldn’t distinguish one Steve Moore soundtrack from another. That’s not the case with John Carpenter’s keyboards, which are what Moore emulates. More than just Carpenter’s themes, you can differentiate between tracks composed for “Prince of Darkness” and those composed for “They Live,” for instance. But if your ear can hear one of Moore’s low-drone warbles and immediately recognize if it comes from “The Mind’s Eye,” “Bliss,” or “VFW,” well, I don’t believe you.
“VFW” still feels like filmmaking friends fooling around for fun. That’s a great goal for making yourself comfortable when first breaking into the business. Four films later, not so much. Joe Begos and company clearly have colossal passion for what they do. Except they’re not breaking bigger and that’s because they’re still spinning on the same tires that were on their truck when they started out.
“VFW” puts this problem into clear view. In simplified binary terms, “VFW” is “good,” certainly worth a one-time watch for fans of sleazy siege cinema. I wish it were better. What’s frustrating is you can visibly see in every pulled punch and dialogue flub that “VFW” could have gotten there if only it took time to sand down rough edges.
As you can probably tell from a cast that includes fan favorites like Stephen Lang, William Sadler, and Martin Kove, the cool characters and their interactive dynamics develop into the movie’s biggest boon. Their relationships mostly consist of persistently ribbing each other with F-words and emasculation while swapping stories about fistfights and pole dancers. When the guys get up to speed, they can be a hoot to hang out with, provided you’re into typical “old man” irreverence.
But it takes the men a minute to come off as a cohesive gang of pals who’ve literally been through the trenches together. During an early driving scene, Lang and Fred Williamson awkwardly talk over each other by starting sentences at the same time, like they’re forcing a conversation where each of them tries being the driver. Sadler’s speech pattern in particular includes odd pauses that seem less like a conscious choice and more of a grab into the memory bank to find a forgotten line.
Either the actors did some improvising that didn’t go smoothly or else they aren’t well rehearsed. And you can’t have a cast that’s underprepared when they’re supposed to be veterans who’ve been friends for decades. I’m pretty sure some of these men only met on the day filming started. And why they added a twentysomething soldier into the mix when the whole point is to showcase old bastards kicking ass, I have no idea.
There’s plenty of pop in the spectacle of slaughter taking unrated violence to the extreme. Gorehounds will not leave “VFW” disappointed. It’s also great to see stars of the small and big screens of my youth scrapping together for something out of the ordinary too. (Of course George Wendt sits in his corner seat at the bar.)
As fleetingly enjoyable as “VFW” can be, it’s still too shallowly repetitive to deliver lasting thrills. You can see the confined set and half-speed stunt coordination sticking out like bleeding thumbs in fight choreography. The “shaggy chic” aesthetic of Joe Begos’ indie efforts got him this far. But doing a small amount of cleanup by trying for second and third takes might have made a big difference. Really, it’s just time for Begos to finally turn loose on something more original, and something more substantial too.
Review Score: 60
If you want to see impossible amounts of blood explode crimson colors like the world’s worst version of a gender reveal, well, “Abigail” at least has that.