Movies
‘Bitch Ass’ SXSW Review – New Masked Killer Creatively Plays With the Slasher Formula
The conventional slasher formula is simple; a killer, usually masked, embarks on a murder spree, picking their targets off one by one in a variety of ways until a final confrontation with a survivor who’ll outlast them. Bitch Ass adheres to the tried-and-true slasher setup, transporting it instead to an urban setting with untraditional characters. Its gleeful sense of fun and creativity outweighs its constraints.
Bitch Ass opens with Tony Todd, playing himself, as a Tales from the Crypt-like curator and host to introduce the tale. It sets up the potential for a brand-new cinematic anthology, but more importantly, it instills the tone. Bitch Ass might carve up some kills and touch on serious subject matter, but it’s out to deliver an entertaining time most of all.
Todd tells of the eponymous masked killer, a recluse who’s created his own house of horrors after falling victim to a horrendous gang initiation ritual as a teen. Bitch Ass (Tunde Lelaye) now tasks those who enter with a deadly game of survival, inspired by the board games that triggered his bullying. Those who fail to win the game lose their lives. That’s terrible news for the new group tasked with entering his home as part of their gang initiation.
Working from a script he co-wrote with Jonathan Colomb, director Bill Posley demonstrates a strong eye for style and visual flair. The innovative ways that Posley presents the game-within-a-game scenario imbues a larger scale and scope to a smaller feature and goes far in maintaining the sense of unhinged fun. Posley uses board game imagery, art, and animation to give a sense of layout and the unwitting player’s movement on the killer’s board. The commitment to the board game theme permeates throughout, both in the finer details of the production design and the kill pieces, each inspired by classic games.
The simple, straightforward premise makes character and narrative flaws more apparent. The total commitment to the board game theme and the tender relationship between Q (Teon Kelley) and his mother Marsia (Me’lisa Sellers) anchors the film when its rougher edges show. In true slasher style, many of the supporting characters are fodder for the kill count and lack depth. It’s clear that Q, a college hopeful, is our Final Guy, and Marsia’s ties to the past feel a little contrived even if they ensure the theme of trying to improve one’s lot in life despite constant economic obstacles. It may play out predictably, but their heartfelt bond and Posley’s more lighthearted approach ultimately works.
Bitch Ass feels like a retro slasher that you’d discover late night on cable or the shelves of a video store, where’d it’d discover and amass a cult following. It doesn’t deviate from the familiar formula at all. Still, Posley’s clever direction, a strong sense of style, and an entertaining twist to a new masked killer’s choice of weaponry make for an infectious time that’ll leave you curious to see whatever tales of terror Tony Todd may have in his collection.
Bitch Ass made its World Premiere at SXSW.
This week kicked off with the release of hippo horror movie Hungry at home, and four more horror movies have arrived for at-home viewing as we head into the final weekend of June.
Here are the new horror movies that released on Friday, June 26, 2026!
The Halloween season can no longer be contained to the months of September and October, with “Summerween” becoming a thing in recent years. Essentially, it allows for Halloween to bleed into the warmer Summer months, and the first ever Summerween movie has arrived.
The Asylum released Summerween onto Digital outlets today.
In the film from writer/director Ryan Ebert, “On Summerween, a former circus clown escapes a mental institution to return to his abandoned mansion and hunt the teens partying there.”
Cole Chapleski, Chase Breithoff, Logan Roe, Sophia Sabol, and Clint Morrison star.
Director Ryan Ebert is the man behind a string of recent indie horrors we’ve covered, including Shark Side of the Moon, The Jolly Monkey, Jurassic Reborn, and Predator: Wastelands.
A witchy coming-of-age story from Dark Sky Films, Camp is now playing in select theaters.
Check your local listings to find a theater near you.
Camp is from writer-director Avalon Fast (Honeycomb, The Serpent’s Skin).
“Emily is the root cause of two devastating tragedies very early in her life, and she feels the weight of these accidents as though cursed. At her father’s suggestion, she takes a position at a summer camp for troubled youth to ease her guilt. When Emily arrives, she is welcomed by the other counselors, who accept her as she is and surround her with peace and forgiveness.
“As Emily begins to believe in a new kind of life, she starts to hear a voice whispering from deep in the woods — one that urges her to go home, and one that may be impossible to ignore.”
The film stars Zola Grimmer in her screen debut alongside Alice Wordsworth, Cherry Moore, Lea Rose Sebastianis (Castration Movie Part 1 & 2, In A Violent Nature), Ella Reece, Austyn Van de Kamp (This Too Shall Pass), Sophie Bawks-Smith (Honeycomb), Izza Jarvis, and Aiden Laudersmith.
Producers Tyler Perry and Jason Blum have joined forces for Peacock Original Strung.
The film is now streaming only on Peacock.
“A talented violinist takes a prestigious job as a music tutor for the gifted daughter of an influential and enigmatic family. As she becomes entangled in their opulent world, unsettling secrets begin to surface, forcing her to question her safety, her dreams, and even her sanity.”
Malcolm D. Lee (Scary Movie 5, Space Jam: A New Legacy) directs from a script written by Alan B. McElroy (Wrong Turn, Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers).
Chloe Bailey (“Swarm“), Lynn Whitfield (Jaws: The Revenge), Lucien Laviscount (“Scream Queens”), Anna Diop (Us), Coco Jones (Vampires vs. the Bronx), Langley Kirkwood (“Banshee”), and Romy Woods star in Peacock’s Strung.
Produced by Diablo Cody, director Meredith Alloway’s Forbidden Fruits brought a new coven of witches to the big screen earlier this year, and it’s now streaming on Shudder.
Lola Tung (“The Summer I Turned Pretty”), Victoria Pedretti (“The Haunting of Hill House”), Alexandra Shipp (Tragedy Girls), Gabrielle Union (Breaking In), and Emma Chamberlain star in Forbidden Fruits, released by IFC and Shudder.
Free Eden employee Apple secretly runs a witchy femme cult in the basement of the mall store after hours. But when new hire Pumpkin challenges the group’s ‘girl boss’ ways, the women are forced to face their own poisons or succumb to a bloody fate.
“Forbidden Fruits grabbed me by the neck the very first time I read it,” Diablo Cody said. “It’s one of the craziest, most creative, beautifully bonkers projects I’ve ever worked on.”
Meagan Navarro writes in her review for Bloody Disgusting, “Forbidden Fruits may not necessarily forge new terrain in the teen satire space, but Alloway brings so much style and energy to her well-cast single-location stage play adaptation for the Gen Z crowd.”
The film is an adaptation of playwright Lily Houghton’s stage play Of the Women Came the Beginning of Sin and Through Her We All Die. Alloway and Houghton co-adapted.
This week’s new release roundups are presented by HUNGRY.
All aboard the swamp tour from hell – this hippo isn’t playing games…
HUNGRY is now available on Digital. Watch it now!
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