Anyone that was brought up on a healthy diet of films from the eighties will know that Steve Guttenberg was one of the hardest working actors of the decade and appeared in many of the classics. He appeared in Cocoon, Three Men and a Baby, Short Circuit, and of course several of the Police Academy movies. In more recent years, he has moved into the SyFy channel monster movies appearing in the Lavalantula films, as well as appearing alongside Dwayne Johnson in hit TV series Ballers. Now though he stars in Heckle, a comedy horror that debuts to the world at Arrow Video FrightFest.
In Heckle, Guttenberg stars as popular comedian Ray Kelly, who is ruthlessly murdered. Years later, his death is the inspiration for a new movie and current flavour of the month comic, Joe (Guy Combes), has been cast to play his hero. As Joe prepares to take on the role of a lifetime, he stumbles across several of Kelly’s fans who offer a more realistic insight into Kelly’s outwardly friendly persona. Guttenberg shines in these flashbacks, going completely against the good guy persona that the audience has built up of him based on his famous roles. He’s clearly having a lot of fun getting to embrace his more vitriolic side, and when coupled with an ill-fitting wig that Trump would be jealous of, he produces the lion-share of the laughs.
At the same time as discovering that his hero might not have been as wonderful as he had hoped, Joe finds himself the victim of a sinister stalker. It begins with an innocent bit of heckling during one of Joe’s shows, but before long, Joe is plagued by menacing phone calls and stalked by people dressed as clowns. Events reach a dramatic climax when the tormentor follows Joe and his friends to their weekend jaunt to the country. As the bodies begin to mount, Joe must confront some uncomfortable home truths.
Gutenberg aside, Heckle is packed with unexpected cameos, and we’ll be honest, it may just have one of the most eclectic casts we’ve seen in a while. Toyah Willcox pops up as Joe’s mother Julie, Love Island’s Dani Dyer (daughter of Danny Dyer) appears as seductive siren Lucy, and everyone’s favourite chattering cenobite, Nicholas Burnham-Vince, has a highly amusing shirtless encounter with Joe in a men’s changing room. They all make for strange bedfellows and it’s a little hard to become fully submerged in the story with so many familiar faces popping up constantly.
Heckle also suffers from some tonal jars, it’s never quite clear if it wants to be more horror or comedy. Rather than land somewhere in the middle, the tone shifts around almost from one scene to the next, which gets confusing and leaves the viewer muddled. It also feels a little unsure of itself in terms of what kind of horror it wants to be; it eventually decides on the slasher, but by the time it arrives at this decision, the audience may have lost interest.
The pacing is another victim of indecisiveness. We spend so long with Joe and co getting to the heart of the film that once the blood starts to spill, everything is over before it has properly begun. The deaths feel rushed, crammed into the last portion of the film, and don’t really offer much different to what we’ve seen countless times before. Then Heckle switches pace again and draws out the killer’s reveal, and reasonings for the killings, far too long.
There’s the seed of a great idea within Heckle, it just needed a little bit more nurturing to fully flourish.
Heckle was reviewed at Arrow Video Frightfest Halloween.
Heckle
Summary
A film with somewhat of an identity crisis, Heckle has some good ideas buried within, it just needed a little more focus to fully flesh them out.
