Bitch Ass — Bitch Ass( VOD)

Bitch Ass is an in-the-hood set horror thriller featuring slasher tropes, Saw-like board game traps, and gruff-voiced ‘n’ masked anti-hero killer. It features an impressive all-African American cast, neat visual touches, and some creative/ inventive kills. Here from  Signature Entertainment & FrightFest Presents is VOD release of this 2022 film.

Bitch Ass was directed/ co-written by Bill Posley. After eight shorts, and a TV film this is his debut feature-length. And aside from a few issues, which we’ll discuss later, Bitch Ass is an impressive opening shot from Mr Posley.

The film opens up with an introduction/ bigging-the-film-up from none other than the original Candyman Tony Todd- who talks about past, black-focused horror films, and how this story stands shoulder-to-shoulder with these. Then we move back to the late ’90s, and the hood- where we meet Spade (Sheaun McKinney) a bearded, hard-eyed and scared face leader of the 6th street gang. He’s talking to four recruits who have to do one more thing before getting in the gang- and that is to break into the large neighbourhood house of a recently deceased old woman, who he believes had lots of money.

So at midnight the four meet outside the house. We have bookish & trying to get a better life Q (Teon Kelley) big, bulky and seeming fearless Tuck(Kelsey Caesar), Tom girl Cricket(Belle Guillory) and big-haired ‘n’ slightly tubby Moo(A-F-R-O). They break in, and find someone is waiting for them- Bitch Ass (Tunde Laleye) a towering, masked, and suited killer, who has a penchant for board games, and is keen to play with the house invaders.

As things unfold, we get bloody and brutal takes on Operation, Connect Four, Jenga, Battle Ships, and Rock, Paper, Scissors. The gore is fairly fleeting, though a good enough feeling of tension and mood is built up with each encounter. And we also get background into who Bitch Ass is, and how he connects back to the 6th Street gang and Spade’s teen years back in the 80s.

Though-out the cast is very good to a little hammy- with some fine moments of believable drama mixed in with the horror 'n' thills.  Laleye as Bitch Ass rather shifts between the two- at his worse coming off like a bargain basement Batman. The film runs at one hour and twenty-five minutes, with the pace kept tight and tense.

Now let’s move on to the issues I mentioned early- firstly, it was great to see Mr Todd appearing in the introduction, but his hype for the film rather wrong-footed me from the off. Next director Posley likes his split screens, and he often utilises these to rather mixed effect- sometimes they add to a scene, at others rather confuse the action. We have overbearing board game visual elements- first, we get cartoon cards pop up with the characters on, which are crossed out as each passes. And secondly, each time we move into a room, we get large text graphics telling us the room we’re in. Both of these elements are creative I guess, but largely took me out of the film.

It is certainly nice to see a new stab at the in-the-hood horror/ thriller genre, and while Bitch Ass has some issues. It’s an impressive enough opening shot from director/ writer Bill Posley, which will appeal to those who like more creative takes of the slasher genre and general African-American-focused horror. I wanted to give this a two & a half mark, but as we only work in full marks here- I've gone for a two