Especially for women, hair has always been a status symbol. Writer/Director Justin Simien’s follow up feature to Dear White People plays up this notion in a big way, with a retro dramedy that centers around a seriously killer weave. Psychological thrills and provocative satire collide in a retro-horror comedy that wears its horror influences on its sleeves while exploring new, intriguing terrain. It just might be a little too ambitious.
Set in 1989 Los Angeles, Bad Hair follows Anna Bludso (Elle Lorraine), a meek but ambitious career woman hoping to be the next on-air music host at Culture, the TV network she’s slaved away at for years. Culture is under new management, though, aiming to revamp the network. That means jobs are on the line. To add to the pressure, Anna’s landlord criminally raised her rent, and her long term lover left her for another woman. To prove she has what it takes to not only remain on with Culture and climb the ranks, she swallows her fears and gets a weave to impress new boss Zora (Vanessa Williams), a former model with sleek hair. What Anna soon learns is that her new hair has a mind of its own.
With incredible production design and costuming, Simien immerses the viewer fully into this retro world rounded out by an ensemble that brings the laughs. The heartbeat of the film belongs to Lorraine, who deftly handles her character’s arc with poignancy and ferocity, in her feature debut no less. Anna’s heartbreaks and struggles fade away thanks to the newfound confidence of her new ‘do, which in turn brings out the more cutthroat side of her. To her horror, that means literally.
Simien introduces unique lore and mythology behind this killer weave story, one that never quite answers all of the questions it raises or explores it as fully as it should. Yet it’s thrilling to see nonetheless. There’s an entire lore book introduced in the movie, by Anna’s Uncle (Blair Underwood), that begs for further exploration. One of the major themes of the movie centers around how unreliable recorded history can be, mainly when it’s left to conquerors, and how that can set us up for failure in our present.
That social thriller aspect in some ways becomes jarring to the other flavors of horror Simien folds into the mix. There are moments of grotesque body horror, a ton of straightforward horror-comedy, and an endless amount of camp. Especially in the final act; the over the top campy finale is polar opposite to the heartfelt dramedy of the first half.
All of it makes for a unique and entertaining watch, save for two significant flaws. The most glaring is the awful CG effects to animate the killer weave. Seeing tendrils of hair seek out the blood of a wound or burger juices becomes extra silly thanks to the CG. The second biggest flaw is the two-hour runtime. Bad Hair is in serious need of a trim. Anna’s story is worth telling, but there are so many repetitive sequences that pad out the runtime to excess.
Overall, Bad Hair makes for a mostly fun time, but one that needs a little refinement. Worthy themes, a stellar cast, fantastic production design, and intriguing lore are the pluses, but as a whole, it seems Simien wasn’t quite sure how to make all of his ideas fit cohesively. He just threw it all at the wall to see what stuck.
In other words, this one’s an off the rails satire that’s guaranteed to be divisive.
