Shingles: The Movie (2023) by Steve Rudzinski


Director: Steve Rudzinski
Year: 2023
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Anthology; Horror/Comedy

Plot:
Sitting around a campfire, a group of teens decide to pass the time telling ghost stories while waiting for their leader to return from an assignment.

Review:

The Legend of Jimmy Headshot-In the middle of a zombie invasion, a headstrong gamer realizes that his years spent playing video games have prepared him to battle the onslaught of the dead. This was a highly enjoyable and fun way to start this one. The series of gags here setting up the universe present with the invasion of the zombies in the area setting up his usage of the homemade tools to put them down. This results in some fun with the comedic interactions featuring the practical encounters and CGI gore that make for a highly enjoyable start to this one even though it’s so brief a little bit more info on his video-game background to help set that up a little wouldn’t have been a bad thing.

Put Your Hand in My A**-Desperate to continue his career, a young man is gifted a ventriloquist doll by his dad who soon comes to believe the doll is alive with murderous intentions. Overall, this might be a rather familiar and formulaic entry but has a lot to like about it. The whole concept of the murderous ventriloquist dummy looking to revive his old act through his machinations is something that can be seen coming from a mile away, but beyond that, there’s quite a lot to like here with the interactions taking place here fueled by the dummy’s outdated references and politically-incorrect jokes clashing with modern values. The lines and routines are usually rather funny, and with the obvious outcome being seen coming it doesn’t make this part any less fun to get through which makes for a fun if not perfect segment.

Aliens Wrecked Our Kegger-Preparing for a massive blowout, a college fraternity in the middle of their annual blowout bash finds the proceedings crashed by aliens looking to assimilate into the culture. There was quite a lot to like with this, which is the best segment in the film. The overall setup is another slightly obvious one but that doesn’t make this quite fun with the unraveling of the story about aliens looking to party with the fraternity that’s misconstrued as an abduction attempt. It’s all the more fun once the real intention is known and brings about a series of goofy, cheesy interactions which are immensely fun with quite a lot of quips being offered which isn’t at all scary in the slightest but is a minor quibble to get over with this one.


Just Say Gnome-After coming into contact with a special garden gnome, a woman enters into a partnership with the creature only for his murderous tendencies to impact their business. This was another incredibly fun segment that manages to get quite a lot to like about it. The inherent stupidity of the lead is gut-busting hilarious with so many of the situations focused around the comical naive nature she has which is carried throughout the segment with the way he carries out the various interludes of him killing and eating those he needs to in order to produce the drug they’re selling. This all comes with some fine jokes, comic innuendoes, and a few decent gore gags that come to take place in yet another segment that has some less-than-stellar scares like the previous segment although, again, it’s not an issue.

Zombies Ate My Homework-Sitting around a campfire, a group of teens decide to pass the time telling ghost stories while waiting for their leader to return from an assignment. As a whole, this is a pretty enjoyable if overlong part of the film. With the idea of the teens being left alone and telling each other stories to each other as they pass the time, this setup is a perfect means of introducing this type of feature with the segments each getting a fine bit of setup and allows the various segments to come together quite nicely. Some of the jokes feel repetitive and hammer home aspects that are brought up in the segments proper. The final gag with the zombies is only memorable for the bloodshed and gore on display which is a bit of a drag for the weakest segment here but still has enough to like about it.


Overview: ****.5/5
A massively enjoyable indie anthology without too many flaws, this one comes across incredibly well with the main flaw in most of the segments being the prevalent comedy instead of scares which isn’t all that much of a detriment. Those who are fans of this kind of indie approach, are huge anthology completists, or fans of the creative crew will have the most to like here while only those who don’t like any of those factors won’t enjoy this one.

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