Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Black Friday’ on VOD, a Holiday-Shopper ‘80s-Schlock-Pastiche Propped Up By Bruce Campbell

Now on VOD, Black Friday churns up a little holiday-season gore topped with a medium-spicy dose of the ever-lovin’ Bruce CAMPbell, emphasis mine, and I urge you to pronounce it that way as a term of endearment. It’s an xtra-cheezey B-flick that rounds up a hodgepodge cast — Devon Sawa, Michael Jai White, all-grown-up Pan’s Labyrinth star Ivana Baquero — for some cheep thrillz and hopefully more than a few yuks. Now let’s see if it gives us a reason to be thankful, or will find us pawing through the junk drawer for a return receipt.

‘BLACK FRIDAY’: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: It’s Thanksgiving day, and somewhere amidst the piles of not-all-that-deeply-discounted TVs at the local suburban All Mart is an oozing, glowing pink gloop-filled globule, which shoots a tentacle of space-linguine at a poor fella, who is soon covered with pulsing pustules and acting like his brain is no longer his own. Dear Santa, please bring this guy a 40-gallon drum of Compound W. MEANWHILE, we meet two schmoes, Ken (Sawa), a divorced dad who drinks too much and works at retail megalith We (heart) Toys, and his co-worker Chris (Ryan Lee), a stringbean nudgeover wimp with a nice mommy and a mean daddy. Their lives suck 100 rusty rubber hoses because they have to wipe the gravy off their lips and be trampled by the foaming maniacal shopping hordes bent on buying their children a bunch of crap like this year’s hot toy, Dour Dennis, a mopey and depressive talking teddy. Jesus wept.

If only Ken and Chris knew what metaphor was waiting for them and their toy-shucking buddies, sweet cashier Marnie (Baquero), nail gun-wielding stockroomer Archie (White), powertripping floor manager Brian (Stephen Peck) and lifer-GM Jonathan (Campbell). There’s a news report that nobody listens to about dangerous meteorites and etc., so the mayhem must be region-, nation- or even worldwide, and not just localized with the bunion zombies at All Mart. Before you know it, some slop that looks like bloody, hairy, fatty shredded brisket needs to be cleaned up in aisle 10, and employees and customers alike are transforming into zombie-Predator Pumpkinheaded C.H.U.D.s., prompting our collection of protagonists to bicker amongst each other, get picked off one by one, make noble sacrifices for the good of the group and all that. Bad news guys, looks like sales will be down this year.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Black Friday is a 90 percent-off clearance-outlet amalgamation of Slither, The Mist, Dawn of the Dead and maybe Clerks? Program it with recent Z-fests like Psycho Goreman or Willy’s Wonderland.

Performance Worth Watching: I guess if there’s a reason to watch this ridiculous thing, it’s to hear a handsomely salt-and-peppered Campbell dish out a grandstanding shop-smart-shop-S-Mart spiel with all the creamed-corn gusto we’ve come to expect from the cult Evil Dead hero.

Memorable Dialogue: “Got your doorbusters right here, motherf—er!” — Archie

Sex and Skin: None. TBRTUBMDHGSSTF: Too Busy Realizing Today’s Unapologetic B-Movies Don’t Have Gratuitous Sex Scenes To F—.

Our Take: Black Friday is sexless ’80s-schlock pastiche mooshing together zombie tropes, miscellaneous apocalyptic alien-invasion dreck and retail angst comedy resulting in 79 minutes of silliness padded with five additional minutes of end credits that crawl down your screen so slowly, it officially counts as one of the movie’s jokes. And one of the funnier jokes, mind you, since the movie features an autopilot script boasting a few good bits, but not much else in the way of originality or inspiration for this thoroughly likeable, game-for-anything cast.

Thankfully, the (mostly) practical ooey-gooey animatronic-slime-prosthetics FX are more convincing than the ow!-my-budget big-box-store setting — in lieu of robust Wal Mart shit-stacked-to-the-ceiling retail-holiday overkill, we get rows of chintzy, lightly-stocked pegboard racks, and it looks like the final depressing days of Toys ‘R’ Us’ going-out-of-business sales. I mean, the most prominent product placement here is Playmobil, symbolically rendering this movie buried-on-the-bottom-shelf-at-Blockbuster fodder. WHEN I WATCH DOPEY BRUCE CAMPBELL MOVIES ABOUT SOUL-SUCKING SPACE GLOBULES I DEMAND CONVINCING REALISM AND NOTHING ELSE.

Bottom line: Dumb movie, occasionally amusing, almost has one or two things to say about things (one timely crack about cops, a well-worn critique of rampant consumerism), and Baquero and Campbell’s presence make it amiable in its general tossed-offness. It’s not a total waste of time. I give it 69 out of 100 eyerolls.

Our Call: Black Friday is hard to dislike, but it’s just as hard to endorse it. I willow and vacillate and ultimately say STREAM IT, but don’t pay VOD prices for it — wait until you can watch it for free on the streaming service you’re already paying for.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com.

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