Written and Directed by: Dan Berk, Robert Olsen
Cast: Bill Skarsgård, Maika Monroe, Jeffrey Donovan, Kyra Sedgwick, Blake Baumgartner
I didn’t know what to expect before seeing Villains; I was hoping for a thriller/horror film but instead got something that I can’t quite decide which genre it fits. I wouldn’t call this film a horror film exactly, because there isn’t really anything that horrifying. I know I’m pretty desensitized to a lot of horror films. When you have watched a lot of them over the years, you detach yourself from what’s going on and remember that it’s all fake. While the film isn’t horrifying, it does have some disturbing parts that are pretty creepy if it actually happened.
Mickey (Skarsgård) and Jules (Monroe) are a couple of millennials set out to find their new life in Florida. As the story begins, we see Mickey and Jules rob a gas station for quick cash. This mostly goes according to plan, but they are both definitely amateurs in the thieving business. They quickly leave the scene of the crime and celebrate their victory only to start running out of gas a few miles down the road. They forgot to get gas before the heist. This scene shows you how smart both Mickey and Jules actually are.
The film is almost comical in the dialog between both characters, and they are set in panic as they are about to get caught in the middle of nowhere without gas in their getaway car. Jules spots a mailbox down the road a little ways past where they ran out of gas. Jules and Mickey scope out the house the mailbox belongs to and determine that the owners aren’t home, but there is a car in the garage they can use to continue their getaway.
They break into the home and find all sorts of things to nick, but can’t find the car keys anywhere. They decide to investigate other parts of the home, and things start to feel more and more off about the home. Inside the home the food is stale, the appliances look like they are from the sixties and, oh yeah, THERE’S A LITTLE GIRL CHAINED TO A BEAM IN THE BASEMENT!
The little girl looks unharmed, but Jules and Mickey want to help her out of there. As soon as they try to find keys for the padlock holding the little girl in chains, George (Donovan) and Gloria (Sedgwick) come home to find two strangers in the house. The look on George and Gloria’s face is not what you’d expect. Instead of fear or surprise, they almost look hungry. Like the way a lion might look if a gazelle wandered into their pride.
We soon find out that George and Gloria aren’t what they seem. Their demeanor is almost too pure and out of place in the world we live in today with cell phones and social media. Their clothes look like they never changed them from the ’60s, and they speak as if they came out of The Truman Show. Something is definitely off about them, and Mickey and Jules are about to find out how vicious these people are when they try to take their little “sweetie pie” away from them.
The film is entertaining and at times, the dialog feels like a comedy especially when Mickey and Jules talk together. One of the funniest lines, which shows how stupid Jules and Mickey are, is when they talk about going to Florida. They talk about how they plan to start a thriving business on the beach selling seashells. Good luck with that!
Villains has some creepy parts, as mentioned before, but it doesn’t quite feel horrifying as it maybe should have. It did have parts that reminded me of films like Misery or Psycho, but the dialog shows how stupid Mickey and Jules are sometimes that you just have to laugh at the characters instead of being terrified for them.
Both Berk and Olsen did a good job with the writing. Perhaps a little too good in some spots where they played up the millennial adults in the film. It was interesting seeing Skarsgård (who you may remember played Pennywise the clown in the recent IT films) in a role where he had more interesting dialog than trying to lure someone to their demise.
I was really pleased with how believable the relationships between both couples were and the chemistry they had. Sedgwick gives a great performance as Gloria and delivers the character’s story in an almost too real, creepy psycho way.
Villains is worth the watch, and I would probably watch it again, even knowing the ending. Villains is probably closest to a horror film. It’s not thrilling enough to be considered a thriller and not funny enough to be considered a comedy. Although it’s a horror film, don’t go into Villains thinking it’s going to be scary. You can go to bed with the lights out after the film and feel just fine.
