Beast Mode – Review

Hollywood really does make people beastly in Chris W. Freeman and Spain Willingham’s Beast Mode: when hapless has-been Hollywood hack Breen Nash (C. Thomas Howell) accidentally kills his star, Huckle Saxton (James Duval, channelling sex-and-drugs-era Robert Downey, Jr.), things look bleak for him. But of course, the show must go on, so he wastes no time in locating sex-shop employee with a resemblance to Huckle (Duval again), and getting his hands on an ancient elixir that will make Huckle’s acne-scarred replacement as beautiful as the real deal. But if you’ve ever had any experience with buying these rather dubious elixirs from LA hippy hustler types, you’ll know that they always come with a downside. This one in particular transforms its users; if you have inner beauty there’s no problem, but if you’re monstrous inside then over time it’ll turn you monstrous on the outside too, which spells trouble when it’s being used freely by film-industry insiders.

The horror comedy thus takes aim at Hollywood’s favourite subject: Hollywood. There are some smart injokes, and plenty of sledgehammer-subtle satire, but these are not really the main concern here. As a horror film there’s no risk of it scaring even the most scaredy-cat of viewers, with its cheap and ungruesome CG creatures, but as a comedy it’s broad enough, both in its writing and its performances, to appeal to the late-night, weed-beer-and-pizza crowd, provided they can look past its TV-movie production values and visuals.