By Simon Thompson
Writer/director Joe Begos’s Jimmy and Stiggs is an enjoyable pulpy splatter fest which does what it says on the tin, without any delusions of grandeur. While it does get a little repetitive in parts, at a lean and mean 1 hour and 20 minutes it never fully outstays its welcome.
Jimmy and Stiggs, follows Jimmy Lang ( Joe Begos), an out of work filmmaker who has spiralled into alcoholism. In the midst of a particularly bad bender, Jimmy believes that he has been abducted by aliens who will return for retribution at any time minute. Jimmy decides to call his old friend and now newly sober party buddy Stiggs Randolph (Matt Mercer), to help survive the oncoming extraterrestrial onslaught.
While Begos’s script more than satisfies the gore junky side of horror audiences, Jimmy and Stiggs at its core is a two handed buddy movie which focuses upon the strained friendship between two formerly close friends. Begos and Mercer’s chemistry on screen is excellent, and with their constant bickering and insults you fully believe the pair’s friendship. Begos in particular does a good job through body language of conveying Jimmy’s frustration to the audience.
Begos’s nails the mis-en-scene in Jimmy’s apartment particularly well, so that when the audience is first introduced to him, it already says a thousand words about how this guy’s life has gone off the rails before a word of dialogue is uttered.
The bright and lurid cinematography by Brian Sowell and Mike Testin, recalls both giallo movies from the past in the genre’s 1970s-80s golden age as well as contemporary films made in the same style such as Panos Comsats’s Mandy. As a director Joe Begos keeps the action fast and fluid, and what particularly makes the fight scenes between Jimmy and Stiggs and the aliens work is Begos’s extensive close ups and unstable camera motion, used to convey how far out of their depth the protagonist duo are in their situation.
Jimmy and Stiggs is the perfect Friday night horror film to crack open a few beers and order a pizza and enjoy. If you’re in the mood for some campy 80s style horror throwbacks, you can do far, far, worse than Jimmy and Stiggs.
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