'LET'S START A CULT' REVIEW: A Throwback to the Weird Little Comedies of the Early 2000s [3.5/5]
A Possible Breakthrough For A Subgenre Woefully Dormant
[Rating 3.5/5] - dir. Ben Kitnick - 2024 - United States - R - 1h 30m - Comedy
“They don’t make ‘em like they used to.”
You hear this a lot about films these days, but especially about comedies. People miss both the daring, dangerous comedies as well as the “why did they make this?” seemingly pointless comedies.
Both kinds of knee-slappers dominated the comedy culture of the late 90s and early 2000s. They weren’t all gems. In fact, many were thoughtless duds, or hateful duds, or thoughtless hateful duds.
But some were good. And weird. Truly bizarre. Some deserved to exist just because of how funny the interplay was between comedic actors. With a lot of these films, people didn’t care about the plot. They cared about trading the best lines the characters used to snipe at each other in between plot points.
I’m not convinced executives ever understood this, but they understood it was worth letting go because they were confident they’d make their money back with DVD sales.
Unfortunately, once streaming took over, we — the audience who liked these kinds of comedies — naively assumed they would just move them onto online platforms. I mean, that’s what VOD was for, right? Sorta?
What ended up happening instead was the powers that be dropped small projects nearly altogether, cut big film budgets where they could, and hoped to earn the same amount of money they always had.
And therefore it’s worth noting when one of those aforementioned nearly-never-made small films slips by the guards and escapes out into the world.
Let’s Start A Cult is one of those. A TBS mid-day classic, if you will, available now and forever.
I don’t need to explain the premise, because it’s effectively (lazily?) included in the title, but suffice it to say the cult you hear about in the opening three minutes is not the cult to which the title refers, and while you might assume the star of the film is the head of that cult, you’d be wrong! That honour goes to self-described “Dirtbag Left” podcaster and stand-up comedian Stavros Halkias, who’s bundled his “funniest friend in the loser group” over-enthusiasm, perverted psychology, cartoonish laughter, and character actor appearance (compliment) into a formidable presence in the comedy community.
But this isn’t just a break for him, it’s a break for On-DVD Comedy Film Fans. It’s a sign we might be on the brink of a wave of enjoyably, knowingly (key word) stupid, truly funny passion projects. Podcasts helped grow and nurture the current stand-up boom. Maybe now we’re seeing that dovetail into film. Trickle-down comedy-nomics.
Despite one or two tonally misguided scenes (the man with the camper van and the wife out of town, anyone?), this feels like an example of the stoner-slacker-weirdo-warm-at-the-centre comedy subgenre and overall vibe that’s stayed dormant the last decade or so.
See Let’s Start A Cult if you’re a lapsed modern comedy film fan, and definitely see it if you’re a “Stavvy” fan.
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Let’s Start A Cult is available on VOD.
Selected Movie Quote: “And I still like you, but, not as much.”
[Rating 3.5/5] - dir. Ben Kitnick - 2024 - United States - R - 1h 30m - Comedy