Main cast: Devon Sawa (Ken Bates), Ivana Baquero (Marnie), Ryan Lee (Chris Godecki), Stephen Peck (Brian), Michael Jai White (Archie), and Bruce Campbell (Jonathan Wexler)
Director: Casey Tebo
The staff of We Love Toys are gearing up for Black Friday again, but this year, the zombies come from within. That’s right, they…
Oh wow, Devon Sawa is much older now and he’s actually hot. Seriously, he’s a hot daddy now, and I feel vaguely guilty for liking to look at him so much now, because I am old enough to remember when he looked like a puffy-eyed skinny little twerp.
Anyway, some alien egg-things manage to find their way into the store, and naturally we always have imbeciles poking their heads close as those egg-things are pulsing and surprise, they turn into feral zombie-like creatures and start attacking and infecting everyone else. That’s the plot of Black Friday.
Because this is deemed as a horror comedy, we have a cast of misfits and clowns, such as Ken the too-cool senior staff that oozes cynicism from every pore, Marnie that exists solely to be his love interest, a germophobe named Chris that for some reason opts to work in retail because that’s like someone scared of blood working in an abattoir, Archie the cool black guy, the asshole floor supervisor Brian because they all are assholes, and of course the asshole manager Jonathan. I’m sure you can tell from the list which ones would make it to the end already.
While the plot isn’t anything inventive, there is much potential for a campy no-nonsense monster chomper fare here. The problem here is that so many of the main characters, especially Chris and Brian, annoy me to no end. I know Brian is designed to be mega-annoying, but Chris is useless through and through and comes with irritating tics. In fact, a very fun character has to die just to save his miserable, no-use ass, and I resent that.
Ken is the obvious leading man here, but his plot armor is way too obvious here. A most egregious example is how when the monsters have him, they take their time with him, allowing him to flee, when these monsters would kill minor characters without hesitation.
On the bright side, the practical effects are cool, although as with much of the rest of this movie, they are not particularly outstanding or memorable. The showdown with the monster is also anticlimactic, making this one seem like a wannabe-version of cooler movies of this sort, such as Night of the Creeps.
All in all, this is a film that has all the ingredients to be a great horror comedy, but it still manages to end up in the fairly average territory. I’ve seen worse, but I’ve also seen better.
