4 Star

Horror in Aisle Three.

Director Casey Tebo cut his teeth making music videos, and documentary’s until he moved into movies with his penned film Happy Birthday, now he gets his big break with horror screen legend Bruce Campbell (Evil Dead, Maniac Cop, Evil Dead 2, Army of Darkness). Written by Andy Greskoviak, on his first venture into films, he brings us our worst nightmare of a shift at work, when nearly everybody else is thinking about food and merriment. Put on your Santa hat and grab anything pointy, ace fun.

It is Thanks Giving, and everybody wants to be eating turkey and spending their day with family and close friends. Not in corporate, they have a long shift fending off manic customers who are trying to get the best deal on flat TV’s and toys for the discerning children of the modern day.

Ken Bates (Devon Sawa, Final Destination, Escape Plan 3) is having another Thanks Giving separated from his children has he has a long shift at We ♥ Toys. After dropping them off with his ex-wife and her new husband, he heads to pick up his young workmate Chris (Ryan Lee, Super 8, Goosebumps), they head to the store as the radio announcer tells us to look forward to tonight’s meteor shower.

Everybody is bitching about the long shift, but they are looking forward to their Xmas bonus. Tonight’s shift consists of the super hygienic Chris, the eternal high school jock Ken, Marnie (Ivana Baquero, Pan’s Labyrinth, The Shannara Chronicles (TV Series)) Ken’s person of interest, Brian (Stephen Peck, Eating Out: Drama Camp, The Night Is Young) the corporate suck-up, Archie (Michael Jai White, Spawn, The Dark Night) the guy you don’t want to mess with, the newbie Emmett (Louie Kurtzman, The Dead Matter, Poser), Anita (Celeste Oliva, A Snow White Christmas, Christmas a la Mode) the corporate robot, Bircher (Stanley Bruno, Habitual) the shirker and Ruth (Ellen Colton, All the Rage, We Pedal Uphill) the elderly woman you always feel awkward around. Also, on the floor tonight is Lou (Christopher Mikael, The Clockmaker) the delivery driver, and up in the Gods is store manager Jonathan Wexler (Campbell).

With impatient customers banging on the door, the count-down starts for shoppers paradise. Brian unlocks the door and the locusts swarm in, stripping the shelves of all that is desirable. With bargains galore everybody has forgotten the meteor storm, but these meteors are not the normal type, they are fleshy alien blobs, that like nothing more than infecting humans.

Sure enough, the customers start turning into mindless flesh eaters, and infecting other customers. Chris is the first to encounter the crazed alien lifeforms. It is only his swift improvisation that saves his life. Unlike the customer. Chris has committed the worst crime in corporate history, he has stopped a sale.

I think he smashed some woman with a mini pink SUV.

The crazies are still getting in, and they work out that the side door is open, so they split up. Brian, Chris and Archie go to close the door, that is when the casualties start to mount as the zombies are evolving into predators that want to feed your body to the growing pink blob in the middle of the store.

It is survival time and this bunch of ticked off employees, haven’t got a clue what to do, what they need is someone at the helm, and that should be Jonathan. Na, na, it shouldn’t be Jonathan, this seasoned manager is pure corporate, and he wants sales.

This is Bruce Campbell showing the young ones how it is done, as they take the future of comedy horror forward. I also think that Devon Sawa should be the new incarnation of Ash.  A cracking horror romp, no zombie Nazis attended this supermarket.

 

Black Friday is available on Digital