Slasher flick Bitch Ass opens with the one and only Tony Todd — yes, Candyman himself — as host of a seemingly low-rent cable access show entitled Hood Horror Movie Nights. As Todd lists the surprisingly sparse number of urban horror features, one begins to ponder not only the state of a genre that is so woefully lacking in representation that the urban subgenre sprung out of it at all, but also the long-term viability of such a content-starved television program. We are then immediately thrust into the film proper, featuring, as Todd describes it, “The first Black serial killer ever to don a mask.” (It’s all about semantics.) As the camera slowly pushes in on an ‘80’s-era tube television, we are presented with a static-y, VHS-era FBI warning that ultimately dissolves into the slick digital photography of the feature itself (a transition so jarring as to be nearly whiplash-inducing). Bitch Ass is a film decidedly beholden to the slasher flicks of yesteryear, yet looks like any number of modern-day interchangeable horror titles popping up weekly on Netflix. It’s certainly a little peculiar that director/co-writer Bill Posley has made no attempt to capture the look of the classic slashers he so clearly loves, a decision that creates a disconnect that almost instantly alienates the viewer. It’s symbolic of film as a whole, a mishmash of various tones, styles, and techniques that is ultimately a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing, least of all a clear artistic point of view.
Bitch Ass is puzzlingly set in the year 2000, as an earnest young man named Q (Teon Kelley) tries to survive the gang-ridden neighborhood he calls home. Desperate for a college education but unable to afford it, he joins forces with a motley crew of comically inept thug-wannabes to rob the house of a wealthy and recently deceased woman, where her purportedly insane grandson (Tunde Laleye) still resides. What follows is roughly Don’t Breathe meets Escape Room meets Saw, as the grandson in question reveals himself to be the titular Bitch Ass, a hulking brute of a man and an amateur game designer whose tenuous grip on reality is soon revealed as he forces his unwanted guests to participate in a series of challenges where defeat will cost them their lives. Accordingly, Bitch Ass is nothing if not an exercise in style, an excuse for Posely, in his feature directorial debut, to trot out every technique in his bag of tricks. Each room is denoted by digitally imposed, blocky three-dimensional text. Intertitles that pop up before each “game” depict its characters on trading cards, their resulting demise highlighted with a giant “X.” The aspect ratio can best be described as Cinemascope on steroids, with accompanying wide-angle lenses proving most disorienting. And split screens play an oddly central role, oftentimes the imagery divided into individual pieces that take on the shape of the game in question, whether it be grisly variations on the likes of Operation or Connect Four.
Indeed, the sheer amount of visual business on display is completely at odds with the simplicity of the story in question, which is nothing more than a variation on such low-budget slashers as The Burning and Slaughter High, in which a formerly bullied individual gets revenge on his aggressors. In isolated moments, Posley does manage to tonally capture the feel of some of those touchstones, but even those instances remain distinctly at odds with the otherwise 21st-century stylizing and aesthetics. That all of this is contained by wrap-around segments that seem to specifically pay homage to HBO’s serialized take on Tales from the Crypt from the ‘90s only underlines the entire production’s lack of focus. It doesn’t help that the games themselves lack little in the way of creativity, or that the death scenes fail to deliver in the gore department, resembling more than anything one of those middle chapters in the Friday the 13th saga that got hacked to death by the MPAA. There’s no denying that Posley has filmmaking chops, but they would be better served by a cogent project that gives him the opportunity to flex technique. Viewed as a test reel, Bitch Ass articulates directorial bona fides; as a feature film, it unfortunately fails to engage, leaving the viewer feeling like the real bitch ass.
Published as part of SXSW Film Festival 2022 — Dispatch 1.
