USA, 2023
Review:
JA Kerswell
An effective stalk n’ splatter thriller with a pleasing throwback to 1981’s most financially successful slasher movie. In a timely reminder of why Find-My-Phone isn’t always a good thing, a downtrodden waitress unwittingly comes to the attention of a brutal serial killer after her boyfriend buys his stolen mobile. BAD CONNECTION splashes around the red stuff and scores points with a likeable lead and some tense chase scenes.
Nina (Dana Davis) is having a bad day. She works as a waitress at a diner to pay the bills alongside her friend Eva (Camila Banus), but one morning a disgruntled customer knocks her phone into the dishwater to spite her. To make matters worse, when she returns to her rundown apartment block she is hassled by her creepy neighbour DeMarcus (Malik Barnhardt), who says her cash problems will be a thing of the past if he could just pimp her out. She is rescued by her kindly landlord Ms Wen (Grace Shen), who tells DeMarcus to go to hell. Nina tells her boyfriend Mark (Michael Naizu) about her now frazzled phone and he offers to get her a replacement - but she says they can’t afford it and that they need all the money they can save to get out of the slum. Adding to everything, Nina suspects she’s pregnant but puts off taking a test to make sure.
Mark figures he can earn some extra cash and finds a secondhand phone online that he buys from a hoodlum who had stolen it off a man at a convenience store. He asks a friend to unlock it for him and then presents it to Nina as a gift. At first upset, she is pacified when he says that he will work extra shifts in-between his studies to pay for it. Instead of wiping the phone, Nina can’t resist a little snooping when she realises the old owner’s details are still on there. However, she is horrified to discover what looks like a snuff video of a woman being tortured and murdered. The couple call the cops, but the killer has already traced the phone and it becomes clear that Nina’s day has gotten immeasurably worse and, as sun sets, is now a race to survive the night …
Full disclosure, I know the director. Jake Helgren and I go way back to the early days of this website. He is a fan of the subgenre and knows his stuff. BAD CONNECTION is an effective blend of slasher thriller and chase movie, as Nina desperately tries to escape the clutches of the killer known as The Hunter (Chris Gann); whilst always being followed by that mobile phone - despite her best efforts to jettison it. Dressed in camouflage gear and a modified padded fabric gimp mask, the killer is dogged in his determination to reclaim his phone and turn this pursuit of Nina into a twisted game. Anyone who comes into her orbit as she tries to escape - be they friend or foe - are gorily dispatched with his ever-present hunting knife.
BAD CONNECTION doesn’t skimp on the red stuff. Throats are splashily cut or punctured and in one particularly gnarly scene, one victim is disemboweled. Although it doesn’t approach the levels of the TERRIFIER films, it is certainly a pleasing throwback for gorehounds to the halcyon days of the 80s slasher. Another throwback - which I’m sure is a deliberate tribute - is that the action moves to the local hospital in its climactic last third. It is certainly reminiscent of HALLOWEEN II (1981) - right down to its eerily deserted wards.
If I had one criticism. Well, not really a criticism, but rather a wish. It would be that the chase between the killer and Nina had been more expansive and taken us deeper into the neon night of Los Angeles. As it is, for budgetary reasons I’m sure, the cat and mouse between the two largely takes place in and around Nina’s dilapidated department block before the showdown at the hospital. It does beg the question of why she didn't hotfoot it out of there towards the nearest populated area, but slasher films need dumb decisions to propel them forward. Otherwise they would be slasher shorts. The film also does benefit from some salty dialogue (the film was co-written by Helgren). When one character sees what a monster magnet Nina has becomes tells her: “Oh, bitch. I don’t do drama. You’re on your own!”
Dana Davis is very effective as the likeable lead, who goes from vulnerable to resourceful in order to survive the night. Davis had previously been in the PROM NIGHT (2008) remake and BAD CONNECTION is a much more satisfying slasher experience than that turkey. It is also great to see Tiffany Shepis getting to prove her acting chops - in a better movie than she often finds herself in - as the sister of one of the killer’s earlier victims. Deon Richmond, who plays the cop on the tail of The Hunter, also has slasher pedigree; he was in SCREAM 3 (2000) and HATCHET (2006). The film even features a small role for one-time enfant terrible of Hollywood gossip Perez Hilton as an ill-fated medic. Hilton must enjoy being offed in slasher movies. He also bit the big one in MOST LIKELY TO DIE (2015).
Jake knows this subgenre inside and out stretching back to his very first slasher movie in 2006 SEVERED LIVES which he followed with VARSITY BLOOD (2014). He also wrote the enjoyable BLOODY HOMECOMING (2013). BAD CONNECTION is perhaps his most explicitly subgenre movie for a while. Hopefully, he’ll one day get the chance to make the big-budget slasher I know he has in him.
BODY COUNT 13:
Female 3 / Male 10
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Trailer for BAD CONNECTION (2023)