What if this Quick Stop to Throw Up at the Service Station, After a Heavy Night of Drinking Could Just Be Your Last?

Got a call from Bonehead Bill asking if I wanted to see this week's monster movie Beast. He kept saying it's the one where Idris Elba punches a tiger! Kept repeating it over and over full of youthful joy like I couldn't understand what he was saying. Told him I'd seen the trailer and all. Sharlto Copley Where's he been all these years?

Bonehead Bill was excited to see this one as he's a real thrill seeker. He's not one for the intricacies of storytelling and character development. He would regularly say things like "there's whole lot of plot here getting in the way of the boobies". Bonehead Bill is the kind of man who wants the nudity and the violence. And he wants it now. Don't you even dare think about making a film longer than 90 minutes and not have S and M torture sequences every fifteen minutes on the dot because this man's normally on his 16th can and ready to pass out at the slightest hint of dialogue.

Had a quick look over the times over at the Light cinema. Informed my good friend Bonehead Bill that I was on the late shifts this week and wouldn't be able to make the only showing of the day at 8.10 PM. Instead of letting it go, Bonehead Bill invites himself round for a few drinks and a movie at my place. He says we'll pick one off the telly.

Not long after he's dropped on my sofa, Bonehead Bill asks, "Did you catch the names of those absolute jokers who wouldn't shut the fuck up about Jordan Peele's Nope on our way past the coffee shop the other day?". Responded with a quick shake of the head as I continued to browse through what was available on the streaming this week. Bonehead Bill proceeded to go on a rant about how if he saw those two eggheads out and about again he'd give them a good seeing to.

All I could reply with was "Ok" paying as little attention as possible hoping this would be the end of it. This didn't put him off and he continued by saying, "nerds like that shouldn't be able to walk the streets". "whys that then?" I asked and he goes, "ain't got time for 'em lad". Even though I half agreed with Bonehead Bill I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of engaging with him on this.

I'd already made my peace with the let down of "Nope" and it was time to move on to whatever cheap shit the services had to offer. No one had given me a straight answer on exactly why they had liked Nope or given me a suitable reason and so I'd just accepted I wasn't going to get one because it simply wasn't possible to give one. All it was is the kind of movie for people like the unnamed duo at the local independent coffee shop to blurt out "Peele's done it again. Another exhilarating work of genius from him" without ever specifying the "what" it was exactly that he had done this time.

The time for dwelling was over, it was time to play Russian Roulette with the infinite number of titles accessible at our finger tips. Our only hope was the movie would go well with a few beers. That's when it hit me, there was that new film on Shudder called Glorious, which was produced by horror legend Barbara Crampton.

Bonehead Bill took some convincing because the last movie we'd watched on Shudder was Revealer and the less said about that the better. Represented all the worst of modern horror with its overuse of neon lighting and lazy synthesisers. As well as the dialogue spelling out the directors political beliefs in a not too subtle way. Bonehead kept mentioning this as he moaned on about there not being enough time for nastiness in horror these days cause the filmmakers never leave you on the edge or even have time put you there because there's 3 pages of dialogue before there's the set piece you want. By the time they get there it's not even fun anymore cause the directors told you exactly how he feels about his material. It was hard to disagree. Eventually I got my boy to watch this flick with me by reminding him that he'd beat the bishop to the poster on his wall of Barbara Campton in her sexy gear in From Beyond probably more times than he could count. Therefore, he owed it to this lady to watch all films with her name on it. 'What's this film you want to watch about then?', he asks.

Glorious is this single location Saw meets Lovecraft cosmic horror type of movie that comes off as though written by Kevin Smith in the Tusk/Red State era under heavy narcotics, rediscovered the next day when sober, reread in absolute fear and disregarded for being too far even for his idea of a drug fuelled midnight movie. A post Whiplash-nightmare in which the fate of planet Earth is being fought in the worlds shittiest toilet. Get strapped in lads, this ones taking you to the heavies.

Whilst I spent the majority of this watching in a state of high anxiety as though reviewing unwanted past traumas, Bonehead Bill was loving this from the off. In the opening few scenes we have this dude who is drinking heavily and burning all his property laughing manically as he dances round and drinks whiskey from the bottle. You had to give it the dude, he seemed to be having the time of his life whilst his life was falling apart all around him. I think Bonehead found a kind of kinship with this man. This was the exact level he operated on too. So he cheered this dude on and joined him on the booze. Barely even 10 minutes in and Bonehead was clearly drunk. For fuck sake. It got to the point where, he could barely understand what was happening and would just keep saying, 'that man is going to fuck JK Simmons glory hole!'.

It took me a good few hours after the thoroughly intoxicated Bonehead Bill's departure to really contemplate the horrors of what I saw in this movie and to even begin to process it. Anyway, I finally managed to get some thoughts together to describe the experience so here goes.

What we have here is the kind of movie that solely exists purely between those hours of craziness as you try to recover from a hangover or intense comedown. We're talking the few hours when you fall into insanity with your head under a tap and arms clutched round a sink. Suddenly you're neither here nor there. The world becomes out of balance. Each passing second thinking this it. You're done for. Fighting for your life, waiting for the shops to open to grab a Lucozade from the corner shop. Telling yourself you'll never touch the bevvy again, it's the last trip you take and making all kinds of false promises for a few extra hours of life. You try to solve the grand puzzle. Your mind breaks. It's just you and your demon who just happens to be JK Simmons. And that motherfucker wants your kidneys. You begin to crave your return to normality a stronger man. Is that all life is, a series of meetings in the bathroom praying for extra lives? This don't sit too well with me. I'm a Chubby Checker man, I want to be dancing the twist summer after summer. So don't go cutting me off just yet! But what if you don't deserve another shot? What if you literally can't fuck your way out of this one. What if this quick stop at the cheap service station to throw up after a heavy night of drinking could just be your last?

Bonus Points for:

-Combining John Kramer mayhem with HP Lovecraft

-Matching Tusk and Red State for clearly under the influence written midnight movie madness

-Having a few drones on the score rather than just synths

-Casting JK Simmons as a demon God who just sits on the shitter hiding from his father

-The main fella chinning whiskey and having a great time whilst his life falls apart

Overall Score: 4/5