Every year there are a couple movies that fly under the radar, becoming the “hidden gems” of year. 2021 had Small Engine Repair, Copshop, India Sweets and Spices. In 2020, there was Shithouse (actually one of the best of that year) and Wander Darkly. Sadly, I hadn’t found one yet for this year. Enter Gatlopp, a little indie horror comedy from Tea Shop Productions and XYZ Films. It released to VOD on June 23rd, and I hadn’t heard anything about it; I had to stumble upon it browsing new releases.
Gatlopp (also know as Gatlopp: Hell of a Game) centers on a group of four friends, who use to be as close as can be but have grown apart over the years. There’s TV producer Sam (Emmy Raver-Lampman), struggling actor Troy (Saruna J. Jackson), bar promoter Cliff (Jon Bass), and Paul (Jim Mahoney, also the screenwriter). Instead of a job for Paul, he just gets labelled as the “one going through a divorce.”
It’s the divorce that gets the group together again, gathering in an attempt to lift Paul’s spirits. Sam and Troy aren’t super enthusiastic about it, so they try to dip out after a beer and a short visit. But Cliff is able to guilt them into staying and playing a new drinking game, the eponymous Gatlopp – Swedish for gauntlet – which he found in a new credenza he recently purchased (in a misguided effort to impress his friends). The game starts off innocent enough. There are the expected trivia questions, along with some more personal questions.
But the game soon takes a sinister turn, as seemingly unexplainable things start happening. Game pieces move on their own. Sam and Troy physically can’t let go of each other’s hands. After going back and reading the full rules (which Cliff neglected to do before beginning), they realize there’s a dangerous, supernatural element at play: if they don’t complete the game by sunrise, they will be forced to play the game for eternity in Hell. As the game presses them to reveal more and more personal information, long-held secrets are revealed, testing the strength of their friendships. And as a fun cherry on top, if they dodge the questions or lie, the threat of some sort of horrible punishment hangs out there as an open threat.
It’s a relatively simple concept and setup – most of the movie takes place in Cliff’s living room. And running at tight and efficient 80 minutes (normalize shorter movies!), the simplicity works wonders. None of the reveals are necessarily shocking or overly complex, but they all feel very real. The cast has great chemistry, and you can feel the pain and anxiety as each has to come clean or learn something new and potentially devastating. Even after being apart for so long, there’s nothing easy about hurting a friend.
All four are fully committed to their roles; nobody’s phoning anything in. That helps sell the setup and the campier aspects of Gatlopp. It may have a horror setup, but it’s a horror-comedy through and through. The horror is more implied and in the aesthetic, so the comedy has to do its fair share of the heavy lifting. The humor is consistent and nearly every joke lands, which helps make up for the lack of any true laugh out loud moments. Gatlopp also knows the type of movie it is, and leans just the right amount into the goofier side of things.
While most of Gatlopp is smooth and breezy and fun, it does stumble in a couple bigger ways. There’s a late moment that tries to elicit an emotional response from the audience. In a vacuum, this is a big moment that would typically work. But it comes so far out of left field, that it’s going to be hard for the audience to truly care about what they just learned.
Unfortunately, the biggest negative is what drags it down the most. For most of the movie, the story and the actions of the character do a great job of displaying the larger messages and themes at play. It’s a terrific example of “show don’t tell.” But then right near the very end, it switches to “tell, and then tell some more.” It really neutered everything it had built up to that point. It’s just a handful of lines, but it had a big effect. Had Mahoney resisted their inclusion, and just let the movie speak for itself, it would have worked just fine.
But even with a clunky final act, Gatlopp is still a really fun time. It blends the horror and comedy aspects, never veering too far into either, striking an effective balance. And it does ultimately have a good message, even if that message is spoon-fed to the audience. I hope more people discover and watch Gatlopp. It proves you don’t need a huge budget to make an effective movie. A solid concept, tight script, and a – pardon the pun – game cast can elevate anything.
Score: 83/100
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