Scared Shitless (film): It's a better than expected, but dumb gore-flick

I decided to watch this film probably for the same reason that most people did: The name caught my eye. I was thinking "is that really the name of the film?" and well, yes. It is.

This one is only going to appeal to people that enjoy lower-budget gore-oriented horror films that are intentionally kind of silly. I wouldn't call this movie particularly groundbreaking and I often wonder why they are made at all because based on the title alone, most streaming services are likely going to refuse to carry it.

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You might look at the cast and see the name Steven Ogg and think to yourself that you know that name from somewhere. That was the feeling that I got and as it turns out he is one of the more famous voice actors on the wildly popular Grand Theft Auto 5. I am familiar with the voice acting but since I am not much a video game player, I have never actually known why people are so adamant about him in that game. It must be pretty great, who knows?

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Ogg plays the main character "Don" who decides to team up with his germaphobic son Sonny who is played by some random Canadian actor (no offense, but this is common) and they are plumbers who get called out at night to deal with a particularly strange plumbing situation that just continues to escalate.

I'm not ruining anything by saying this but the thing that is blocking the pipes isn't a bunch of hair or poo poo, it is a multi-tentacled creature of some sort that seems dead-set on killing any and all things that get in its way.

It's in the pipes, so it isn't easy to find.

This movie has plenty of jump-scares but that is about it. The story is nonsensical and I am almost certain that it is meant to be stupid, not scary. It falls into the category of comedy-horror according to most people and that is precisely what it is.

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The things that impressed me about this movie wasn't the inventive writing (there isn't any) or the acting (it's adequate, but not great) or even the amazing super-cheesy soundtrack that is definitely royalty-free. Nope, what impressive to me about this film is that I am presuming they were working with very little money with this production but outside of a few moments, nothing looks particularly fake.

I don't think they CGI'd very much of this because that would have been prohibitively expensive and instead needed to rely on some inventive puppetry and prosthetic to make the kills seem "not fake."

There is one scene at the very beginning of the film where a rather large building is on fire and I was already impressed at this point because this is something that when it is CGI on a low-level it looks really stupid and when it is an actual building it is really expensive. So I can't even guess what they did here... maybe coordinated with a fire department that was going to do a controlled burn and asked if they could use some of the footage. I mean, it looks real.

They do some old movie tropes from the 80's that I always appreciate but with a modern twist such as a sexy girl in the shower who is doing something that they don't call it this but is definitely OnlyFans and we know well ahead of time that she is going to get killed in the middle of her sexy livestream.

Should I watch it?

Well at least for now, it might be difficult for you to do so since it isn't streaming as part of any streaming service that I can find. However, if you are one of the kind of people that pays to rent movies, it is available in a surprisingly wide range of places including AppleTV, Amazon, and Plex. Plex will start offering it for free starting on the 4th of November.

As for whether or not you should do so I think that this film is only going to appeal to a very small range of people that appreciate strange and funny gore and also enjoy when producers are able to stretch a small budget into a film that looks like it cost a lot more than it did.

Although I did enjoy this movie you have to keep in mind that I have been a fan of low-budget horror films since the 80's and there are a lot of nostalgic moments in this movie that are obvious throwbacks to a time when having a bunch of gore and some boobs was really all you needed in order to get people to rent it on VHS.

If you don't even know what VHS means, I think there is very little chance this is going to appeal to you.