Film Review – Black Friday (2021)

Horror and comedy have long been in harmony with one another.

As far back as the silent era of cinema, horror films have had elements of comedy worked into them for its audiences to have the permission to laugh when they’re too busy being scared. The comedy ranges from slapstick to satirical, mockumentary to parody and surreal to gross out.

Among the most iconic and pioneering horror comedies are films such as Young Frankenstein, Evil Dead II, Gremlins, Scary Movie, Shaun of the Dead and more recently, The Cabin in the Woods, Tucker and Dale vs. Evil and What We Do in the Shadows. All vastly unique in their own right and have very different styles of comedy cultivated into their respective storylines and varying characters.

Like Evil Dead II and its sequel Army of Darkness, certain horror franchises that have started out as straight-forward horror films have often adapted and evolved into spawning horror comedy sequels and spin-offs. The Child’s Play and multiple Chucky films are just one example. Another example that is probably up for discussion but worthy of this hot take is the Friday the 13th franchise. With each sequel that series created, the plot, characters, locations and its iconic villain got more and more outlandish that one could argue it inadvertently became a horror comedy series. I mean c’mon, Jason Voorhees – a deformed, hockey mask-wearing hermit and mass murdering killer of teenagers ended up in space in the year 2455 after being cryogenically frozen eventually being transformed into the part-cyborg machete-wielding killing machine “Über-Jason”. It’s still a ridiculous concept just over 20 years later.

Adding to the wacky and barmy offshoot and long lineage of horror cinema is Casey Tebo and his latest film, Black Friday.

Set on Thanksgiving night, a group of misfit toy store employees fight for their lives on the biggest sale of the year as their shoppers are out for blood this year…literally! Black Friday stars Canadian heartthrob and Final Destination alumnus Devon Sawa, real life action man Michael Jai White and man who is stranger to the goofy sphere of horror comedy, Evil Dead franchise phenomenon Bruce Campbell.

Opening up ominously with an store employee discovering a parasitic organism within the warehouse of the hypermarket, Black Friday quickly turns grizzly when Monty mutates into a blood-thirsty monster, savagely attacking two co-workers. The sinisterism is then swiftly cut short as an easy listening, jolly Andy Williams-styled Christmas tune croons its way into the fold as the opening credits roll.

Moving into the present day, Ken Bates (Sawa) drops off his two daughters at their mother’s house, as he begrudgingly prepares to work a late shift over Thanksgiving at the We Love Toys department store on the busiest retail day of the year. Later arriving at the store with fellow colleague and friend Chris (Ryan Lee), morale among the team is at an all time low. Nobody wants to be there. None of the workers want to have to deal with the tsunami of customers and bombardment of mind-numbing, consumer-greedy enquiries.

One member of We Love Toys that genuinely does want to be there and add to the corporate machine is detestable store manager, Jonathan Wexler. Introduced only by his instantly recognisable chin and unmistakeably baritone voice, Wexler is of course played by Campbell. And being the corporate slave he is, Wexler attempts to motivate and
comfort the disgruntled workers by exclaiming, “No matter how bad these suburban savages get under your skin, the customer is always right!” right before We Love Toys’ doors open…or they are beaten down by the increasingly impatient and aggravated ensemble of customers waiting outside.

However and rather predictably, when We Love Toys’ doors open, all hell breaks loose. Whatever it was that transformed the All-Mart worker into massacring his co-workers, it has found its way into We Love Toys and among its maniacal shoppers. From here on, Black Friday amps up its campy characteristics and becomes a fully fledged Sam Raimi/Evil Dead-esque comedic B-movie.

One by one, the workers and remaining shoppers of We Love Toys are slowly but surely picked off in gruesome means, metamorphosing them into an alliance of blood-sucking Deadite-looking creatures. Ken, Chris and Jonathan fight for their lives as they attempt to escape with the aid and assistance of fellow co-workers Marnie (Ivana Baquero), Brian(Stephen Peck) and Archie (Michael Jai White).

Black Friday on the whole is a mixed bag. The comedy is middling and the horror is an ode to a style and era that is somewhat far removed from the much more intelligent and “elevated horror” we see today that not everyone might appreciate.

Tebo‘s film boasts superb and more than impressive special and practical effects as well as make-up. As previously mentioned, the creatures in Black Friday look as if they were ripped straight from the Evil Dead universe. They’re ghastly and the demonic, undead corporeal aesthetic is absolutely on point! Robert Kurtzman and his team did an utterly stellar job at creating horrifying beasts.

When there isn’t a satirical comic jibe in the films dialogue, Black Friday leans into its more action-packed slapstick orientations. Trapped inside a toy megastore, fighting for their lives using whatever items they can scavenge, Black Friday reverberates Romero’s Dawn of the Dead. Zack Synder’s underrated 2004 remake too. The Dead Rising video game franchise also popped into my head, in the way that We Love Toys employees hilariously use various children’s toys such as skateboards and kids’ electric ride-ons and store equipment to fend off the parasitic creatures. This too is where Michael Jai White‘s character comes into his own. As the store’s handyman, Archie has an arsenal of tools to step up to being the store’s very own Action Man. A nail gun, screwdrivers, hammers and an assortment of knives, Archie has the right tools for the job.

Gore onslaught aside, the comedy of Black Friday is often not particularly funny. It provokes pound shop and dollar store cheap laughs amidst its silliness. With its unsubtle satirical pokes at consumerism and how the general public are perceived as monsters when it comes to the retail workers during the festive period, Tebo‘s film for the most part is eye-rollingly unwitty.

With that in mind, I don’t believe Tebo‘s Black Friday to be a sincere rich, complex or smart interpretation on consumerist culture. It isn’t trying to be the next Dawn of the Dead or They Live. It wholeheartedly is just a cheap flick that centres around the Thanksgiving and Christmas period that utilises horror elements purposefully in a campy and loony way.

And with its just above average performances across the board, first-rate practical effects and gore and minimalist storytelling, if you can appreciate it at face value Black Friday has all the makings in becoming a future Christmas cult classic.

Horror, Comedy | USA, 15 | Digital HD | 11th February 2022 (UK) | Signature Entertainment | Dir.Casey Tebo | Bruce Campbell, Devon Sawa, Michael Jai White, Ivana Baquero, Ryan Lee, Stephen Peck