Bitch Ass | SXSW 2022 Film Review

Everyone has a genre that speaks to them on a spiritual level, and horror is my vibe. Slashers are particularly firmly parked in my wheelhouse. Friday the 13th, Halloween, Scream, etc. The list goes on and on, and an entertaining slasher flick can truly make for a murderously good time. What has been notably absent from the genre, though, is slasher diversity. All of our favorite masked serial killers are mopey white guys, what the hell? Well, Bitch Ass aims to change all of that.

Paying homage specifically to 90s horror films such as Candyman and Tales from the Hood, director and co-writer Bill Posley immediately establishes this aesthetic as “Hood Horror Stories” host Tony Todd (the aforementioned Candyman) introduces the tale of Bitch Ass, the first masked black slasher.

Bitch Ass follows the story of a seemingly slow-yet-sharp young man named Cecil, who we witness in flashbacks to have been relentlessly bullied by the eventual neighborhood 6th Street gang leader, Spade (Sheaun McKinney). A tragedy occurs and as Cecil ages up, he dons a mask to take on the alter-ego of Bitch Ass. Flash forward to 1999, and he is essentially a neighborhood boogeyman, a story to terrify your friends, and the locals are leery of lurking around Cecil’s hood. But Spade has seemingly spent years waiting to put his specific plan in place.

On 666 Night, Spade enlists four of his trusty followers to loot Cecil’s grandmother’s home now that she has passed (robbing the elderly is not up to code, apparently). Q (Teon Kelley), Cricket (Belle Guillory), Moo (A-F-R-O), and Tuck (Kelsey Caesar) all agree to meet up at midnight, unaware of what awaits them. Shortly after they arrive, Bitch Ass (Tunde Laleye) manages to separate each wannabe gangster and sets them each up in a Saw-like situation of dire straits where it’s time to play a game. Should they win, they can go free. Should they lose, it’s goodbye limbs.

Bitch Ass’s instrument of choice isn’t a machete or butcher’s blade, it’s gamesmanship. He apparently has spent years perfecting specific takes on established games like Connect Four and Battleship, and converted them into weapons of mass dissection. This leads to some exciting blood and gore, as well as a different take on the slasher genre as a whole. As Spade and Q’s mother, Marsia (Me’lisa Sellers), come searching for the quartet, more players are introduced.

The cast is more than up-to-play, and there isn’t a poor performance to be found. What’s more, the title design work – including labeling each room ala Clue and showcasing players cards with their current wins and losses showcased on the screen – are the cleverest I’ve seen in a horror film in eons. These little breaks become almost a character itself, and made for a roaring audience reaction each time they came up.

There is an obvious amount of reverence on the screen, and I so desperately wanted to love Bitch Ass. Yet, the film never quite flows as smoothly as it intends to, and there are moments where the situations ignore all forms of logic (which is honestly quite common in slasher flicks), especially how long players find themselves separated and tortured while others wander aimlessly throughout the house, and devolves into borderline generic fare. Bitch Ass has a few choice kills with suitably gory entrails yet just as many that land rather lackluster, and the character himself never rises to the heights of Jason, Michael, or Candyman. The backstory is there, but the intensity necessary to truly craft a memorable setup nor villain is never quite fully realized.

Director Bill Posley obviously has a lot of love for this genre, it bleeds through the screen. His script with Jonathan Colomb comes very close to breaking through into a franchise-worthy villain for modern times. The potential is here, and some of the touches used throughout – especially the impressive title designs – have me pumped with whatever the director comes up with next. Bitch Ass is not quite the slasher extraordinaire he’s feared to be, but there is something in Bill Posley’s eye that deserves a future in horror.

Follow our further discussion on this and over 25 other film and episodic premieres screened at SXSW 2022 via this episode of The Hollywood Outsider podcast: