We already have Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees, but the world always has space for a new masked killer; enter Bitch Ass. Billed in the opening introduction by a fabulously eccentric Tony Todd as the first black masked serial killer, Bitch Ass arrives at SXSW to try and join the heady heights of the heavyweights. In a bid to ascend to their ranks Bitch Ass must protect his house from a group of fledgling criminals tasked with robbing the place as the final test of their gang initiation.
Other than being the first black masked killer, who exactly is Bitch Ass and what’s his MO? Well Bitch Ass, real name Cecil, is a recluse who grew up with his overzealous grandmother. Whereas it’s often the case that mother knows best, here it is actually the Grandmother, her strict upbringing instilling an extreme sense of morals. Everyone knows the rules that must be followed in order to survive a slasher and in Bitch Ass we learn that he has been raised to see drinking, doing drugs, and being lustful, as major sins. His upbringing goes a long way to explain why he stalks his prey in a way that hasn’t really been addressed before.
Bitch Ass is also a little more sophisticated than the brute force of Michael or Jason; his murders are much more elaborate. Like John Kramer, Bitch Ass is a fan of games. Board games to be exact. His love of them has led him to convert his house into a booby-trapped maze of warped takes on popular classics. These games form the foundation for the kill scenes as he challenges each gang member to a new nightmarishly distorted version of family favourites. These games include a recreation of Operation featuring a corpse and plenty of electricity, a guillotined variation of Connect Four, a back-breaking riff on Jenga, and an intense game of Battleship. The set-ups are extreme enough to be crowd-pleasing, but do take some time building their momentum.
As interesting as the Saw-style death sequences are, Bitch Ass struggles with some pacing issues. After the initial introduction to our gang of future victims, there’s little time wasted in starting to dispatch them. With each new death the momentum builds until only one remains, but, just when it seems that Bitch Ass is building up to its finale, the action rewinds, introducing a new batch of fodder. This contingent are older, and share history with the killer, but their sudden insertion into the main plot thread kills all forward motion, conjuring the horrible sensation of starting all over again. This is substantially frustrating when the film felt close to its end, and is just a massive disappointment.
The story and pace may be somewhat pedestrian, but there are still plenty of instances of inventiveness that help Bitch Ass to shine. From its opening Rubik’s Cube inspired opening of segregated blocks of jumbled footage that twists and turns into position, Posley asserts his film as being visually bold and dynamic. Other little quirks include animated cutaways that express all the ‘players’ of the game as a deck of cards. Then there’s the helpful addition of graphics appearing on screen that describe the location of the house. The text works as a guide, negating the typical ‘how does the geography of the house connect’ problems that arise. Posley’s casting of Tony Todd as host is also inspired. The Candyman star gets to live out his Cryptkeeper and Vincent Price (with a spot on moustache) dreams as the quirky narrator that opens and closes precidings.
What starts out well sadly gets buried under the weight of repetition. Bitch Ass nonetheless has some inventive design elements and gruesomely cool deaths, potentially just enough to leave the audience with an appetite for further exploration.
Bitch Ass
Summary
A film of two halves, Bitch Ass begins meaningfully enough; however, the decision to introduce more victim fodder around the halfway point kills the pacing and triggers sensations of repetition that the original aspects find hard to cut through.
Bitch Ass was reviewed at SXSW 2022.
