Rapid Review: Suburban Gothic (2014)

SYNOPSIS: Raymond has a prestigious MBA, but he can’t find work. He can channel the paranormal, but chatting with a cute girl mystifies him. Kicked out of his big city apartment, Raymond returns home to his overbearing mother, ex-jock father, and beer-bellied classmates. But when a vengeful ghost terrorizes the small town, the city-boy recruits Becca, a badass local bartender, to solve the mystery of the spirit threatening everyone’s lives. – via IMDB

I have been waiting for Suburban Gothic for a while. After watching the trailers, it ticked all the boxes for me for what I would like in a movie, highest up being a little quirky. So watching this while on holiday, I was extremely happy to find that I enjoyed it in execution, too. It is really strange, which might throw some people, but it is handled well. You can see that everyone is having a total blast. The movie wants to be a horror comedy, and like I have complained before, most movies in this genre will forget to do both, and focus on one. That was certainly the case here, once again, when all the focus went with the comedic side of things. There was cheese laced throughout this, but it worked (in my opinion) and I had fun – Suburban Gothic managed to be hilarious, even though there were one or two hiccups along the way in terms of pacing. There was so much bizarre stuff going down, and I can honestly say that I detested Ray Wise’s Donald. A seriously reprehensible man, even though I understand the stereotypes of characters were grossly deliberate and overblown. The biggest sell for me on this film was, undeniably, Matthew Gray Gubler. He is just awesome, and he can do peculiar and eccentric so well. One cannot miss that the movie was shot on a budget,  but all things considered I think they did they best they could with it, and it never got to that ridiculously dodgy effects part (though don’t get me wrong, some were so cheesy you had to laugh). Remember, if the story is good for me, I am not too concerned about the effects. Dennings and Gubler managed to work well together, and it was enjoyable to watch them strut their stuff. I think the characters and their antics are far more entertaining to watch, and take front and centre when it comes to the film – the horror and ghosts took a backseat, and I was fine with that. Richard Bates Jr handles his material very well and makes it work, flaws and all. This movie knows what it is, and sticks to that most of the time. The characters were so crazy here, and everything was done in the extreme. Obviously I liked it, and so did my other half, but I think this movie just might be too odd and out there for most people, but that is alright – a little gem for us crazies then 😛