Welcome Back Everyone to Streaming Originals! I know it's been a while since I covered anything that was streaming exclusively. Unless we count the new Texas Chainsaw Massacre? But I don't. Anyways, this is the series where I dive into different films that are exclusively streaming to one of the many streaming services available. The last one that I covered was Hellblazers over on Tubi.
Today, I had the pleasure of checking out Slapface from Jeremiah Kipp. It's streaming exclusively on Shudder. The synopsis for the film is as follows: "A boy deals with the loss of his mother by creating a dangerous relationship with a monster rumored to live in the woods."
Slapface is an incredibly interesting film with a few different layers to it. On one side, it's a deep look of a family struggling to hold itself together. On another, it's a story about a boy trying to find himself and figure out who he is. Another layer finds the boy dealing with a monster. The more that I try to unpack the film, the more layers I begin to uncover. And then I hear Shrek saying "Onions have layers.".
August Maturo leads this film as Lucas, a teenage boy that is dealing with the loss of his mother. He lives with his older brother, Tom, played by Mike Manning. The interesting thing is that both of these characters were faced to grow up way too fast. Lucas is completely unsure of what to do and how to handle himself as he's found himself bullied by three girls - one of whom has a crush on Lucas. Tom isn't very helpful as he is on the same path that his father was before him - drunk. At the beginning of the film, he's trying to fix things and make it right for his younger brother. But through the course of the film, you just see the alcoholism bubbling itself to the surface as his way of escaping from life. If only his life hadn't take that turn with the car accident, where could that have left him? Would he have followed in his father's footsteps? This was something that I found myself thinking a lot about. And honestly, that's pretty fantastic to see supporting characters in a film being so layered. As for Maturo, it's interesting seeing where he goes on this journey. Part of it reminds me of Let The Right One In. And there's another character, Anna, that dates Tom. She tries to actually get to know both brothers. She genuinely cares for both of them. But she's like this brief glimpse of light and hope for the characters before the darkness fully consumes everything.
Then there is the creature. Well, it's honestly interesting to try and figure out if it's a creature or if it's a witch. There's a local legend involving a Witch. Lucas accidentally summons it one day as he walks into a 'house' on a dare. Whatever you may like to call this 'entity', it is incredibly original. It harkens a little bit to the Tooth Fairy from Darkness Falls in movement briefly. It's something that I found extremely unnerving.
There is a lot more that I could say about Slapface. It just has so many layers to it. I thought I had it figured out exactly where the story would go. But nope, it kept proving me wrong. It is a dark tale. By the time, the ending had arrived - I wouldn't have been surprised if one aspect I guessed would turn out to be right. There's a lot of different ways that someone could interpret the film as well. This is a film that I feel like could be compared to Antlers in its handling of certain elements. And I would say that it succeeded more than Antlers did. It left me with an ending where I was speechless. It's a bold story and one that I would recommend checking out.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5.
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