Director: Dan Berk, Robert Olsen
Writer: Dan Berk, Robert Olsen (Screenplay)
Starring: Bill Skarsgard, Maika Monroe, Blake Baumgartner, Jeffrey Donovan, Kyra Sedgwick, Noah Robbins
Plot: After a pair of amateur criminals break into a suburban home, they stumble upon a dark secret that two sadistic homeowners will do anything to keep from getting out.
Tagline – Two bad people are about to meet two worse people.
Runtime: 1 Hour 30 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Story: Villains starts when stoner criminals Mickey (Skarsgard) and Jules (Monroe) rob their latest gas station, they end up breaking down on a remote road, leading to them finding a home with a daughter Sweetiepie (Baumgartner) chained in the basement. When the homeowners George (Donovan) and Gloria (Sedgwick) arrive home.
Once George and Gloria gain control of the situation, they need up looking for ways to get rid of the problem in what becomes a battle to survive between the two couples.
Thoughts on Villains
Thoughts – Villains puts two couples in a cat-n-mouse battle that will see the older sadistic couple controlling the reckless younger couple in a battle of wits to survive. This is one of those films that will give us two couple that are both annoying to watch, the young couple are just stoner thieves who you don’t care about, while the older couple are committing a worse crime, but have a better plan on each decision. Seeing the two look to outsmart each other does work well for the film, but never makes us care which ones comes out on top, as long as the little girl becomes safe, even if the film does hint at something much more important about what she is where she is. The performances are strong, with Skarsgard and Monroe filling the carefree characters well, Donovan being calm and calculated, while Sedgwick always feels unstable. The film keeps the singular setting, which is a remote house in the woodland area, helping show us just how twisted the older couples’ plans are.
Villains is an easy to watch horror comedy, but it does fall short of the comedy it wants to be, with the failure to create interesting characters.