Black Friday — Black Friday(streamed film)
Black Friday is a 2021 sci-fi horror comedy based in a toy store, where fleshy alien sacks crash in from the sky and turn folks into reptilian zombies. It features genre names like Devon Sawa and Bruce Campbell, and while it’s not the most original/ground break film, it’s a charming and entertaining enough romp. Here from Signature Entertainment is a streamed release of the film.
Black Friday is the third feature-length film from Casey Tebo, who is seemingly most known for rock video related fair, with more than a few Aerosmith connected titles. His previous films are 2016’s Happy Birthday, which is seemingly a tripped-out horror comedy road movie (featuring a cameo from Stephen Tyler). And 2020’s Barely Legal, which is some form of marijuana drama/ doc. Black Friday is a fairly standardly shot modern sci-fi horror film, with some fairly neat monster and (largely) particular effects.
The film kicks off in All-Mart, where one of the disgruntled employees are putting up late night a black Friday banner. Sudden something crashes through the roof, he goes to check it out- finding a pink pulsing mass- a foaming yellow tube appears from its middle, spurting a thick white web into the man's face, and bing-bang he’s turned into a zombie. Next, the credits roll, and we start meeting the characters who work at hanger based corporate toy store We Toy. There’s devoiced dad/gravely-if-charming Ken (Devon Sawa) dropping off his two daughters at his X's. We have Geeky clean freak teen Chris (Ryan Lee), who gets a lift with Ken. When touching down at the store we meet the rest of the characters- Marine (Ivana Baquero) a ballsy brunette whose in a bonk buddy relationship with the older Ken, campy-yet-brash supervisor Brian (Stephen Peck), tall and muscular African American warehouseman Archie (Michael Jai White), always trying to be the employee of the month Anita(Celeste Oliva), going towards retirement Ruth( Ellen Colton), and the stories manger Jonathan( Bruce Campbell). The shop gets ready to open its doors, with Campbell counting down from his office. At first, everything seems busy, if fine- though when the clean freak Chris is sent to clear up what looks like bloody innards things start going a miss- when a rabid zombified woman attacks him, he throws a shelf on her. With his work colleagues then strapping him to a chair in the backroom- he tries to convince them of what happened, they don’t at first, but things quickly unfold, and they find the shop is under attack.
As the film unfolds, we find the group trying to survive- we have the zombified customers slowly turning into reptilian and bloody razor teeth creatures, a few gory kills unitizing tools and things in the store, and the creatures seemingly gathering to create a glowing pink fleshy structure that’s making its way up to the shops celling. The flow/ unfold is fairly what you expect, but it rides by in an enjoyable manner.
Moving onto the cast- Sawa is a good fit for the cocky, but caring lead. Baquero works as a good emotional sparring partner, and Lee is good as the likeable clean freak teen. Campbell has more of a supporting role, though again is good here- coming off as a smug/ tragic older middle-aged manager, with his neat greying moustache and cardigan. The effects, while not overly present/ inventive, are ok- with the end creature effect being rather neat.
As fairly run of the mill sci-fi horror-comedies go Black Friday is entertaining enough. And I can see it appealing to those who like to idea of blend of Shaun of The Dead, work-based comedy, with slight touches of The Blob/ The Thing throwing in for good measure.