The movie’s precisely what the title implies. (Unmarked Spoilers)
The year is 1983. Joel (Evan Marsh) is a reporter for a horror movie magazine who has an unrequited crush on his roommate, Sarah (Alexa Rose Steele). One night he decides to follow Sarah’s latest date, Bob (Ari Millen), to a bar to record him saying some compromising information. After that fails, Joel gets super drunk and blacks out. After coming to, Joel stumbles upon a self-help group/business retreat for serial killers.
There’s Mike (Robert Maillet), a combination of multiple slasher movie villains, but primarily Michael Meyers and Jason Voorhees. Fritz (Julian Richings), an accountant who looks like death and enjoys dressing up as a clown. Carrie (Amber Goldfarb), a Joan Jett-looking killer. Zachery (David Koechner), a government agent who doesn’t mind collateral damage. Hideo (Sean Baek), a cannibal chef. And Bob.
Yes, Bob. While at first he seemed like just your usual ’80s movie douchebag, he quickly cements himself as the film’s biggest threat when it takes him all of five seconds to start pointing out holes in Joel’s cover story. Bob also likes to wear a transparent raincoat, a shout-out to American Psycho (NSFW). Or possibly Hannibal (2013-2015), given that Bob is more like the title character of that show in terms of intelligence.
Luckily for Joel, right when it seems like he’s a dead man, Carrie ends up rescuing him, revealing that she’s a serial killer killer. Now they must work to kill the others and get out of the situation alive. Or rather, Carrie works to kill the others and get out alive. Joel typically ends up making things worse. Like pulling the fire alarm and calling in the authorities, a situation that Bob is able to easily work to his advantage.
Zachery ends up being the second member of the group to die after the other killers get tired of him bossing them around. Sometimes it really sucks to be the biggest name in a cast full of character actors and unknowns. Often you get brought in for the sole purpose of being killed off for shock value. Even though that hasn’t been shocking after Scream did it a couple of times.
Over the course of the movie, Joel and Carrie share several nice scenes where they bond and share each other’s respective backstories. Joel tells her his reason for being out at the bar in the first place, and Carrie spells it out for him about how that behavior is super creepy. A good lesson that the film manages to deliver in a way that doesn’t come off as really preachy.
Carrie’s backstory is that a killer she nicknamed Mr. Midnight killed someone she loved before she was recruited to a secret organization to hunt other killers. The film doesn’t bother providing any specifics because Carrie’s such a familiar archetype, they’re not necessary. And probably to save that for the sequel.
Now, while Carrie might feel familiar, she’s still a good character. She’s complex because part of her motivation is that she enjoys killing people just as much as the other support group members. At the same time, she proves that she does have some morals, as shown by how she went out of her way to save Joel when it probably would have been more pragmatic to let him die.
At one point, Sarah ends up going down to the police station, unaware that the place is crawling with serial killers. At which point I went ‘great, a damsel in distress, that’s what this movie needed.’ Except when Fritz tries to attack her, Sarah ends up laying his a*s out due to taking aerobics classes. The female characters in this movie being so competent is so sweet.
Vicious Fun is one of those movies like Kick-A*s and Guns Akimbo where the main male character is a total loser, almost excessively so, and the main female character is totally awesome in every way. Movies like that usually end with the male hero killing the villain after the female did all the heavy lifting as a way of saying ‘I did something.’ (NSFW) In Vicious Fun, Joel helps take down Bob, but it’s still mostly Carrie, which was a tad unexpected.
Much like Netflix, the original content of Shudder consists of hits and misses. Victorious Fun, however, ranks among the gems of the streaming service. Besides having a good sense of humor, it’s also really well acted—especially Millen, who manages to be just so devilishly charming. If you can, I recommend checking this one out this Halloween season.
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