Movie Review: I Need You Dead! (2020)

Down Schmucksville way, a gaggle of young punks (some literally) are rippin’ shit up at a local house party. One said punk is the Lou Reed-lookin’ mother fucker known as Dood (Estevan Muñoz, who it has to be said is funny, relatable, and all-around top shelf in his role), who makes the scene, gets his palm read, and gets blasted on gummy bears laced with some of those good ol’ Made in the USA drugs that are all the rage with milk maids between the ages of 27 and 36… and are guaran-fuckin-teed to get your arcane ass “dummy high”.
Anyway, after some hallucinogenic hullaballoo, our high hero encounters a toothsome tumor that crawls from a sewer grate and straight into… well, into a plush Mogwai… but after he’s done fuckin’ that thing six ways to Sunday, the creature (performed to gravely voiced perfection by Ty Anderson) becomes a kind of life coach for our Dood… sort of… I mean, mostly he’s a verbally abusive, deluxe pain-in-the-ass par excellence.
Soon things become a bit more symbiotic, and it’ll take every ounce of guts Dood possesses to stay ahead of the law (who have it in for all punks it seems), and maybe even find romance with guitarist Pal (Sidra Morgan-Montoya) all while trying to not completely go batshit bananas!
Oh and I haven’t even mentioned the cut-away sequences that present a mocumentary detailing the film’s production…
Filled with cartoon sound effects and sight gags, living fast food, manga tropes, and a ton of heart and in-your-face D.I.Y. punk rock influenced bravado, writer/director Rocko Zevenbergen serves up a psychotronic mind-fuck with I Need You Dead! that plays out like Frank Henenlotter directing a Guitar Wolf video while injecting episodes of 1987’s shitty-ass My Pet Monster cartoon directly into his eyeballs… or balls… or some other body part… but it’s also a pointed, if over-the-top (and at times pretty damn dark), satire of just what it takes to get a micro-budget, decidedly un-commercial flick produced and released for the wicked world to consume. So that’s fuckin’ aces, boils n’ ghouls!
Also of note are the film’s strong aesthetic that bounces between hand held documentary verve and gritty, ultra-damaged film print (just like the kind your putrid pappies used to savor down 42nd Street way), the fine acting on display (as referenced previously, but let me tell ‘ya; the entire cast is on fire here folks), and how much the noise-rock soundtrack truly creates the perfect mood for this fever dream… but that shit isn’t why you read this creepy column…
Which brings us to the meat n’ poisonous potatoes of this picture; the special effects! Let me just take away all the suspense for you baited-breath bastards and say they are practical and glorious, and the creature itself is a cancerous lump of teeth, hair, and vines (sure, why the fuck not), and I truly loved his abrasive ass to teeny-tiny pieces!
All in all; I Need You Dead! is pure surreal insanity from start to finish, and I bet you lot will dig the ever-lovin’ hell out of it if you’re anything like yours cruelly (and if you are like me, you might want to have that mole looked at)!