#Halloweenathon2024: BJ Novak’s Vengeance (2022) Is Blumhouse’s Strangest Horror Movie Yet
On the First Day of Halloween, BJ Novak’s VEANGEANCE
Greetings from HalloweenLandia! It’s that most wonderful time of year once again and this go around my Halloween recommendations are going to be even wilder than last year’s. Starting with BJ Novak’s — yes, him of The Office— directorial debut Vengeance, one of the oddest Blumhouse horrors in their entire catalog. The Blumhouse logo is right there at the opening of the film, which rubber stamps this as a scary movie in my book.
Vengeance follows Ben Manalowitz (Novak), a dime-a-dozen white dude podcaster whose player life in Manhattan is as cliche as his work. That is, until the family of one of his random hookups Abilene “Abby” Shaw (Lio Tipton) calls to inform him she’s not only dead, but might have been murdered. They also mistakenly think Abby and him were a couple, roping him into attending her funeral in Texas. As Ben gets sucked in deeper into the drama of Abby’s small town, its drug and other crises become Ben’s new story, one his podcast producer Eloise (Issa Rae) begins spinning into what might be an award-winning piece of investigative journalism.
But it’s never that simple. When Ben’s car is hot wired and blows up, he begins to realize there is far more darkness going underneath the small town veneer and Abby’s quirky family than meets the eye.
Ever since I saw this film during my broken elbow recovery I have not been able to stop thinking about it. The acting is stupendous, and the way Novak has cleverly hidden a horror film in what appears to be a family and journalism mystery/comedy is beyond brilliant. The ending continues to shock the hell out of me, and every time I watch it I see a fresh nuance I missed all the other times. It’s a fantastic commentary on the opioid crisis in America, while slyly poking at the dead white women obsession that runs the media. And so much more.
1-4-3-5/5 stars. Highly recommend especially for folks who don’t want to start Halloween season with a lot of blood and gore.
Welcome back to Zuzu Zombie’s Halloweenathon, a series of microreviews featuring unusual and mostly out-of-the-box horror movie watchlists for the month of October. Browse the entire 2024 collection here, plus past years. Happy Halloween!
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