St. Marks Place: an establishment packed with tipsy New Yorkers; no private rooms; speakers that eviscerate your eardrums—I know how bad karaoke can be. But in Chris Lightbody and Robert J. Steinmiller Jr.’s horror-comedy Bad Karaoke, there’s proper punishment for butchering another Top-100, alcohol-slurred cover.
Their entry into the “killer object” subgenre of horror unleashes a possessed Song-a-Ling karaoke machine on singers who can’t hit the right notes, which is a hilarious concept. Lightbody and co-writer Spencer Yaras treat lore with an appropriate silliness; the film is hardly more than its “sing or die, even though you might die anyway” schtick. Fortunately, that’s not a problem—Bad Karaoke finds its gruesome groove.
A mediocre cover band en route to Napa, California, snatches the cursed karaoke set from a rural bar’s trash heap. They’re on the way to a wedding gig, stopping for the night at a vacation rental to recharge. Emily (Lexi Underwood) suggests an intimate karaoke night, so they all put their names in the machine. But as the group quickly learns—as if the black box’s glowing red eyes and melted plastic teeth weren’t a tell—there are consequences for poor performances.
After the first singer’s heart is ripped from his chest, the rules are clear. You either please the machine, or it chooses a brutal fatality you can’t escape.
As a low-budget horror-comedy, Bad Karaoke succeeds based on its meshing ensemble and surprising sentimentality. When kill sequences call for viciousness, it’s there in a Game of Death type of way (players reluctantly participate and fail). But Lightbody and Steinmiller Jr. aren’t just mocking tone-deaf karaoke’ers. At the story’s core is a sadness about the current state of media, where fans more frequently ask for nostalgia acts on stage or remakes in their theaters. Karaoke culture is pitted against live music; why give an indie artist a shot when you can stumble through LMFAO party anthems for the sixtieth time? It’s not a soulless inanimate object killing for fun; it’s a film fighting back against creative bankruptcy.
Everyone entertains on the mic in their own way, representing different karaoke personas. Some are wonderful, as Kat Cunning’s Hannah sheds emotional weight while crushing a Jason Mraz love song. Others are pitiful, like Jonathan Jason Green’s baseball jock Matt, who gets pitchy while struggling through Haddaway. Underwood’s Emily and her crush, Case Walker’s Noah, bring us into full-on musical territory as they serenade their evil karaoke overlord, while Kevin Clayette’s drummer Logan is the all-dancing, no-vocal-talent doofus who angers his melodious god. A variety of acts us guessing as the plastic rig decides each singer’s fate, with a few special guests thrown in to stack the body count.
When possible, Lightbody and Steinmiller Jr. keep things practical with strewn-about guts and projectile eyeballs. Skull fragments, flesh chunks, the whole shebang. But digital mutilation VFX beg for extra dollars to bolster head explosions and other harder asks that are cheaper to accomplish with animation. There’s an ambitious use of fake blood that coats characters three times over, like bodies are Capri Sun pouches waiting to burst, which contrasts poorly with a few pixelated squirts added in post-production. Bad Karaoke musters all the on-set grossness it can, but suffers when the low-budget nature of its production limits the refinement of visual repugnance.
That said, the lively chemistry between castmates and a darkly comedic personality sell the experience. Bad Karaoke leans hard on licensing to build a believable sing-along track list and shapes a genuine hangout vibe that fits the karaoke gimmick. Those who struggle with an imbalance of horror to comedy in their horror-comedies might do so here, because laughs come first. This one’s for the silly geese who love to belt a tune, but also have a sick and twisted streak when it comes to their genre selections.
Bad Karaoke is an infectious little indie once the lyrics flow and gore gets sloppy. Lightbody and Steinmiller Jr. keep things easy and breezy as far as popcorn entertainment branding, but past the ridiculousness of a malevolent karaoke demon, there are conversation points worth exploring.
This idea of carving original paths versus following in someone else’s footsteps comes through in the portrayal of karaoke as covers, and what gets stifled when machines take over. It’s no Deathgasm or Studio 666 in the musical horror department, but that’s just fine. Bad Karaoke is its own lil’ beast; a delightful, drop-dead kooky one worth an encore.
Bad Karaoke received its world premiere at FrightFest 2026; release info TBA.
