Andrew "The Weird Arby's Guy" Bowser goes feature-length with his character Onyx the Fortuitous. I'm pretty sure that this movie borrows its plot directly from a specific classic horror film, but I couldn't remember which one. The House On Haunted Hill is close but it's not exactly right. It's also a lot like an episode of Guillermo del Toro's... Uh... Something About A Box where Peter Weller invites invites five people over to explore his creepy mansion. In this one, the great character actor Jeffrey Combs plays Old Creeper Who Invites People To His Mansion.
I hear this movie had a crowdfunded budget and Bowser certainly did not scam his donors. The mansion looks like something out of an old Hammer classic. Onyx's job at Marty's looked like a real Telway-style burger joint. He got actual actors to be in his film. There's a fairly legitimate soundtrack. The overall "look" does feel more like an episode of Tales from the Crypt than a film production, but that isn't the worst thing to say given the subject matter.
The story itself is where the magic fizzles. You have five main characters who are promised immortality via Satanic rites if they aid Jeffrey Combs and the beautiful Olivia Taylor Dudley. Even if their validity as unholy practitioners of magic is shown, you know that something in the deal is not what it seems. It's a story we've seen a hundred times before (unless you're six years old, but a large number of F-bombs and some light gore keep this from being a kids' movie) and the characters involved are not the most charming.
Bowser puts forth his best efforts to put this one on his back and the expansion of his character gives him an almost Pee-Wee Herman level of mystique, but the others are just doing what they can. The beautiful Melanie Chandra is underwritten and bland as a too-cool-for-school goth type with delusions of being a reincarnated queen. The beautiful Arden Myrin is fun but one-dimensional as a soccer mom turned Satanist. Terrence Carson is solid if unspectacular as the squad's expert on Satanic lore and the beautiful Rivkah Reyes' character is interesting but goes unexplored.
I'm going to guess that Andrew Bowser used this as a vehicle to pay homage to the Saturday morning cartoons he watched growing up, as well as the fantasy and horror films that inspired his work as an adult. (Did you see the poster for this movie? Looking entirely legit.) But I don't know if this type of story was the best use of the Onyx character, as this tale comes off as "cute" at best.
The Onyx the Fortuitous videos that went viral worked because they took fairly mundane subjects and inserted the "Weird Arby's Guy" element, which gave the situation at hand an entirely new spin. A feature-length film needs to retain that dynamic, so Bowser probably should have borrowed the plot from his favorite fish-out-of-water stories if he was going to steal a premise.
You know, something like Elf, Big or maybe even Thor would have worked. Even movies like Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, Joe Dirt or Forrest Gump where everyone else in the film is playing a normal person while an inexplicably weird main character bumbles through life could have been good. If anything, Onyx might have thrived in a satirically stale environment like the one in Office Space.
For me, one other missed opportunity was with the fast food customers that give Onyx a hard time at the beginning of the film. It would have been nice to see them return at the end and get their comeuppance. Like, couldn't Onyx have returned with his newfound Satanic powers and forced them to take refuge in the restaurant's dumpster and grease bin? You're already stealing from other movies, dude. Go ahead and steal from the Neverending Story.
I say it's not amazing but it merits another try with the Onyx character, because it could have been great.
I hear this movie had a crowdfunded budget and Bowser certainly did not scam his donors. The mansion looks like something out of an old Hammer classic. Onyx's job at Marty's looked like a real Telway-style burger joint. He got actual actors to be in his film. There's a fairly legitimate soundtrack. The overall "look" does feel more like an episode of Tales from the Crypt than a film production, but that isn't the worst thing to say given the subject matter.
The story itself is where the magic fizzles. You have five main characters who are promised immortality via Satanic rites if they aid Jeffrey Combs and the beautiful Olivia Taylor Dudley. Even if their validity as unholy practitioners of magic is shown, you know that something in the deal is not what it seems. It's a story we've seen a hundred times before (unless you're six years old, but a large number of F-bombs and some light gore keep this from being a kids' movie) and the characters involved are not the most charming.
Bowser puts forth his best efforts to put this one on his back and the expansion of his character gives him an almost Pee-Wee Herman level of mystique, but the others are just doing what they can. The beautiful Melanie Chandra is underwritten and bland as a too-cool-for-school goth type with delusions of being a reincarnated queen. The beautiful Arden Myrin is fun but one-dimensional as a soccer mom turned Satanist. Terrence Carson is solid if unspectacular as the squad's expert on Satanic lore and the beautiful Rivkah Reyes' character is interesting but goes unexplored.
I'm going to guess that Andrew Bowser used this as a vehicle to pay homage to the Saturday morning cartoons he watched growing up, as well as the fantasy and horror films that inspired his work as an adult. (Did you see the poster for this movie? Looking entirely legit.) But I don't know if this type of story was the best use of the Onyx character, as this tale comes off as "cute" at best.
The Onyx the Fortuitous videos that went viral worked because they took fairly mundane subjects and inserted the "Weird Arby's Guy" element, which gave the situation at hand an entirely new spin. A feature-length film needs to retain that dynamic, so Bowser probably should have borrowed the plot from his favorite fish-out-of-water stories if he was going to steal a premise.
You know, something like Elf, Big or maybe even Thor would have worked. Even movies like Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, Joe Dirt or Forrest Gump where everyone else in the film is playing a normal person while an inexplicably weird main character bumbles through life could have been good. If anything, Onyx might have thrived in a satirically stale environment like the one in Office Space.
For me, one other missed opportunity was with the fast food customers that give Onyx a hard time at the beginning of the film. It would have been nice to see them return at the end and get their comeuppance. Like, couldn't Onyx have returned with his newfound Satanic powers and forced them to take refuge in the restaurant's dumpster and grease bin? You're already stealing from other movies, dude. Go ahead and steal from the Neverending Story.
I say it's not amazing but it merits another try with the Onyx character, because it could have been great.