Main cast: Kevin Sussman (Joey Howell), Kim O’Mara (Mindy McCobb), Sid Williams (Jeff Kovak), and Rip Torn (Narrator)
Director: Stuart Taylor
Joey Howell, or “Joy Hue” as Rip Torn would mangle that character’s name in his opening narration, is the most obnoxious twat in that video store that everyone tries their best to avoid. The self-styled encyclopedia of horror movies would denigrate the choices picked by the customers at the check-out, insisting that they should watch his recommendations instead, and he constantly makes sure that everyone knows how smart he thinks he is.
His wet dream comes true when he is visited by scream queen legend Mindy McCobb, the Death Mistress, who drops by the store after receiving his fan mail. After all, how can a lady resists a fan that calls her the “Meryl Streep of horror”? Mindy has found a second wind in her career by transitioning to playing the villain in her movies, and she invites him to come drop by the set of her new film. Even better, on that evening he is invited to play a role in that movie. Squee!
Alas, the movie has some surprises in store for Joey. The cast members use losers like him to play the victims in the movie, because in that movie, the scares need to be as real as possible… So much for It’s Only a Movie!
This episode is the most comedic one to date, or at least, that’s what director Stuart Taylor clearly hoped it to be. Unfortunately, this episode veers way too much into a particularly stupid brand of camp that nothing really works here.
Kevin Sussman plays Joey as obnoxiously as can be, but unfortunately, the exaggerated faces he makes when he is supposed to be scared transform this episode into something more akin to something rejected by the people behind the Scooby-Doo cartoons because it makes even them cringe. There’s nothing funny about Joey; that guy is just irritating, and this episode doesn’t even have the grace to show me the exact fate that befalls him in the end. Worse, that guy is just plain dumb. Every time he correctly deduces that he needs to flee the scene, he will stay because Mindy dares him to. In other words, I root for his death and the show deprives me of that. I feel cheated as a result.
Also, the episode keeps playing up how terrifying Mindy and the rest are, but they just aren’t. Hence, when Mindy just says boo and Joey screams while running away for what seems like twenty miles in twenty seconds, it just makes Joey look like a grade-A wuss. Yet, he is supposed to have watched so many horror movies as a kid that he is practically immune to the scares of newer horror movies as a result. There is such a huge disconnect between the campy low-budget set pieces and the supposedly terrifying chills that scare even a jaded horror movie fan, that it makes everyone involved in this movie come off as delusional Joey-type fools that overestimate greatly how awesome they are.
It’s Only a Movie is only a blunder, a pretty big one.
