Benny Loves You’ Review: Dir. Karl Holt [FrightFest Halloween 2020]

Benny Loves You screens at Arrow Video FrightFest as part of the First Blood strand. This subsection of programming highlights some of the newest filmmaking voices on the genre scene, and Karl Holt’s Benny Loves You is most definitely different. Riffing heavily off of both Ted and Child’s Play, Benny Loves You follows Jack (played by Holt himself) as his beloved childhood toy, Benny, comes to life to exact bloody vengeance. 

Jack has always been a bit of a loser. With few friends and a crippling fear of the dark, his parents give him talking teddy Benny. Jack and Benny quickly become friends for life and a few decades later, are still inseparable. Down-trodden at work, living with his parents, still very much inhabiting the role of their child, Jack has become stuck. The sudden death of his parents then thrusts him into the real world of adulting and, in desperate need of a promotion and money to save his familial home, he decides to reinvent himself. This reinvention sees Jack cast Benny aside, but Benny isn’t the type of toy to go quietly. Spurred on by being cast aside, Benny sets about worming his way back into Jack’s affections by helping him deal with his problems. Unfortunately, Benny’s idea of helping is to murder everyone he sees as either a threat to Jack or to his relationship with Jack. As Jack tries his best to keep his rage-filled furry friend at bay, the bodies mount up and Jack realises he might have to put an end to Benny once and for all. 

Benny is a brilliantly realised villain. Looking and sounding a little like Elmo with ears, Benny’s cute appearance masks his darker nature. Let’s face it, the doll that Chucky possessed always looked and sounded creepy. Benny however, looks so cute, cuddly, and sweet that you can’t help but warm to the little guy. His reasoning for coming to life also makes some sense, he has been betrayed and hurt by the one he loved most in the world and will do anything, even kill, to prove himself still worthy. There’s a manic charm to Benny; think mogwai Daffy from Gremlins 2: The New Batch, and the screen lights up whenever he appears.  

As much as Jack is our lead, it’s actually the scenes with Benny that really pop. The time spent with Jack tends to sag and just doesn’t offer as much delight as those with the psychotic bundle of fluff. It was the same with the Child’s Play films and was likely a contributing factor in moving those films to include more of Chucky. Were there to be any future Benny films, and anything is possible… a shift in focus to Benny would be very beneficial. 

The technical work on Benny is also worthy of applause. Given the limited budget, the team has done wonders bringing him to life. It’s very clear though that the bulk of the budget was spent crafting him as all the other elements really suffer. The FX make-up on the deaths are quite obviously fake, sometimes to an amusing level, and whilst Benny Loves You is played for laughs at times, these elements aren’t really ones we should be chuckling at. The decision to pump the budget into Benny is still a clever one however, as a horror film is only as good and as memorable as its bad guy, and Benny is certainly unforgettable.  

Tonally, Benny Loves You struggles to find itself. It skews closer to comedy horror than all out horror, but you still get the feeling that all out horror might be the actual intent. The plot is also a tad on the drab side, it’s an age old story of a man-child finding himself amongst the bloodshed, but there’s a disconnect from Jack that means we never fully root for him. Some of the acting is a little too over-the-top; every character being a classic stereotype means that the cast can’t really do much more than regurgitate the lines they’ve been given.

A commendable first feature effort, Benny Loves You manages to be both entertaining and memorable, but struggles to rise above some plot development.

Benny Loves You was reviewed at Arrow Video Frightfest Halloween.