There's nothing too deep to intellectualize with a movie like Wild Men. It may have something under the surface that one can try and parse out as far as meanings about the search for something one doesn't (or does) believe in, or the trauma of seeing a, you know, parent mauled by a giant Sasquatch. But what it comes down to is that Bobby Sansivero, on his first movie, knew what he was doing and made a comedy that works, on a few levels.
The first is that it takes on reality shows, where people hunt ghosts or (I think it actually is as thing) go after Bigfoot (or Bigfeet, what's the plural word for that?), and how deadly serious the people on the show take themselves. Pompousness is always something fun to mock, and it helps that Zack Abramowitz, who is very good here as Richard "Dick Hefelfinger (sic) is surrounded by people who sometimes are on his side and other times call him out on his fervent ways (Erin MacDonald is excellent in such a role as the actual scientist with the TV crew looking for Bigfoot).
The other way this works is that it's meant to be a horror movie, but understands that by now the style that worked years back with Blair Witch, found footage, is not only ripe for parody it's the only way to go since that too has taken itself too seriously and often with character's we're meant to sympathize with and come off like a**holes. In this, it's intentional that most of the characters are unsympathetic and jerks and B-words and so on, and there's a lot of don't-give-a-f***ery with the crew that stands out. Another character, played in a very funny turn by Alexander Stine, is the one who especially stands out as a total slob and tool, and yet the movie is always aware of it and all the funnier for it.
And lastly it's that the movie knows how to build up to laughs and find the moments that will make the comedy work. It's not an especially subtle kind of comedy - it's big, it's sloppy, it's got types and running gags like Dick continually hitting on an intern (which is both funny and creepy in one scene) - but I was in the mood for it, and it hit the majority of the marks it was aiming for. It goes for the awkward Office-style stuff, and Sansivero and company also don't shy away from gruesome carnage and things like ribbed limbs and severed heads and gushing blood and so on, and it has a Dead Alive feel in certain moments (again, a funny and inspired touch). Is it some great masterpiece of the genre? Maybe not. But I had fun with it, and if you know what you're getting then you will too.
The first is that it takes on reality shows, where people hunt ghosts or (I think it actually is as thing) go after Bigfoot (or Bigfeet, what's the plural word for that?), and how deadly serious the people on the show take themselves. Pompousness is always something fun to mock, and it helps that Zack Abramowitz, who is very good here as Richard "Dick Hefelfinger (sic) is surrounded by people who sometimes are on his side and other times call him out on his fervent ways (Erin MacDonald is excellent in such a role as the actual scientist with the TV crew looking for Bigfoot).
The other way this works is that it's meant to be a horror movie, but understands that by now the style that worked years back with Blair Witch, found footage, is not only ripe for parody it's the only way to go since that too has taken itself too seriously and often with character's we're meant to sympathize with and come off like a**holes. In this, it's intentional that most of the characters are unsympathetic and jerks and B-words and so on, and there's a lot of don't-give-a-f***ery with the crew that stands out. Another character, played in a very funny turn by Alexander Stine, is the one who especially stands out as a total slob and tool, and yet the movie is always aware of it and all the funnier for it.
And lastly it's that the movie knows how to build up to laughs and find the moments that will make the comedy work. It's not an especially subtle kind of comedy - it's big, it's sloppy, it's got types and running gags like Dick continually hitting on an intern (which is both funny and creepy in one scene) - but I was in the mood for it, and it hit the majority of the marks it was aiming for. It goes for the awkward Office-style stuff, and Sansivero and company also don't shy away from gruesome carnage and things like ribbed limbs and severed heads and gushing blood and so on, and it has a Dead Alive feel in certain moments (again, a funny and inspired touch). Is it some great masterpiece of the genre? Maybe not. But I had fun with it, and if you know what you're getting then you will too.
