Jimmy and Stiggs

by Mike McGranaghan

Watching Jimmy and Stiggs reminded me of the first time I saw Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead 2. That viewing was on a VHS tape in the late ‘80s, but even on a small screen, it made an indelible impression by presenting relentless gore in a manner that was somehow shocking and hilarious at the same time. Joe Begos, director of VFW and Bliss, started this DIY project during the pandemic and was clearly inspired by the go-for-broke anarchic spirit Raimi captured so beautifully. The result may be the most gloriously demented horror movie of the year.

The show opens with two hilarious Eli Roth-directed fake horror trailers, a la Grindhouse. Then the proper story begins. Jimmy (played by Begos) is a drug addicted filmmaker who believes aliens have entered his house to abduct him. He calls his former best friend Stiggs (Matt Mercer) for help. At first, the now sober Stiggs thinks Jimmy is merely having a drug hallucination. When aliens actually do show up, he realizes what’s really at stake. The two men spend the better part of an hour slicing and dicing the creatures in various ways.

Aside from a couple moments where the leads argue about the value of sobriety, the plot is pretty thin. It works, however, because of the gonzo style Begos brings to the film. Shooting with a 16mm camera gives the images a grainy, atmospheric look. On top of that, the director, who also did the production design, relies on copious amounts of fluorescent paint and blacklight to provide all the carnage with a colorful glow. Combined with aliens that intentionally look a little homemade - bordering on papier-maché - the visuals cast a hypnotic spell.

The violence does too. If you remember the scene from Evil Dead 2 where Bruce Campbell is attacked by his own possessed hand and then cuts it off with a chainsaw, rest assured Jimmy and Stiggs has a whole bunch of sequences along those lines. Once the aliens arrive, the movie is wall-to-wall gore (again, rendered with fluorescent paint). The mayhem caps off with a lengthy finale from Jimmy’s POV. It contains a parting image that I know I’ve never seen before and will probably never forget.

Jimmy and Stiggs is obviously not for every audience. You need to be a hardcore horror buff with a taste for the outrageous – or, more accurately, the outrageously outrageous. If you fall into that category, the movie is loads of fun. Begos continually finds interesting new things to put his characters through, and the fast-paced chaos sweeps you into its madness.

As an added bonus, stay through the end credits for a short feature on how Begos pulled off so much with so little. It’ll make you appreciate his bold vision even more.

---