Joe Begos (Chirstmas Bloody Christmas) is back with another neon-drenched, ultra gory slice of 16mm madness in Jimmy & Stiggs. Since his 2019 festival hit Bliss, Begos has been working exclusively on film and it’s really helped make his work stand out, assuming the nonstop parade of gooey exploding heads, killer robot Santas, and dive bar lighting didn’t already set him apart. Jimmy & Stiggs is a real indie achievement, starring Begos himself in the lead role, and featuring enough dayglo orange alien blood to repaint your entire apartment. It’s a non-stop heavy metal head trip and easily one of the most insane movies of the year. A real solid pick for Eli Roth to kickstart his brand-new independent studio The Horror Section, which is bringing the mayhem to cinemas this weekend.
Set entirely in an LA low-rise apartment, Jimmy & Stiggs follows am out of work filmmaker named Jimmy (played by Begos) who’s preparing for a one-man war with some little green men after an unexplained encounter the night before leads him to believe he was abducted by aliens. In a panic he calls the one friend who might give a shit: Stiggs (played by fellow filmmaker Matt Mercer, Dementia Part II). Unlike Jimmy, Stiggs got sober a few months back but after they discover that they’re trapped in Jimmy’s apartment with no way out, the boys start hoovering up their body weight in cocaine and whiskey to keep their minds sharp as they hack and smash their way through wave after wave of unkillable alien bastards.
Shot over a period of four years with a crew that was usually only 5 people, Jimmy & Stiggs is pure handmade horror from the practical effects (courtesy of the Russels FX team who recently crafted some of the new nightmares in David Bruckner’s Hellraiser) down to the location and set design. Nearly the entire feature was shot in Begos’ own apartment which he decorated and bloodied up himself. If you’ve ever done a messy DIY project in your living room, multiple that by 1000, add in the constant fumes of rubber alien creatures, thick synthetic blood EVERYWHERE, noxious chainsaw exhaust, and you’ve got some sense of the conditions the crew muscled through to make one of the most unhinged movies of the year.
16mm Midnight Madness gorefests like Jimmy & Stiggs are a rare breed so if you’re a fan of chainsaws, alien autopsies, and heavy metal this one is an absolute must-see. Begos might be better suited behind the camera than spitting his own venomous dialog on film, but Matt Mercer (also a producer on the flick) carries the emotional core of their relationship while tag teaming as a wild, drug-fueled alien killing machine that would easily fit in the Mad Max universe.
Gore to the core, Jimmy & Stiggs has an A B S U R D amount of visceral body destruction (especially considering that the movie was shot in full earshot of all his neighbours!) not to mention a final sequence that is A+ POV mayhem. The scrappiest movie of the year, and maybe the most ambitious too, Jimmy & Stiggs is a wild ride and one that should be seen on a big screen with a rowdy audience, so get your ass to the theatre this weekend if your local is cool enough to be hosting a screening.
Jimmy & Stiggs, the first feature to be released under Eli Roth’s The Horror Section banner, hits theatres Aug 15. Let us know what you thought of Begos’ newest Heavy Metal Nightmare over in the Nightmare on Film Street Discord. Social Media Is A Cesspool. Come Hang Where The Cool Creeps Are.
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