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BURY THE BRIDE (2023)

Directed by Spider One.
Written by Krsy Fox, Spider One.
Starring Krsy Fox, Scout Taylor-Compton, Dylan Rourke, Lyndsi LaRose, Chaz Bono, Rachel Brunner, Katie Ryan, Adam Marcinowski, Cameron Cowperthwaite

A group of rowdy gals get together in a cabin in the desert to have a bachelorette party for June (Scout Taylor-Compton). But one day into the festivities, the gals are surprised by the happy hubby-to-be David (Dylan Rourke) and his group of skeevy hillbilly friends. June’s sister Sadie (played by Krsy Fox who is not only the co-writer, but the girlfriend of Spider One) doesn’t really understand why June has fallen for David so quickly or what she sees in him. David plans to rectify that by crashing the bachelorette party. But David and his buddies have a secret no one knows and this secret means trouble for our partying gals.

Spider One is the brother of Rob Zombie and released ALLEGORIA just a few months ago. I found ALLEGORIA to be a fascinating little movie full of interesting characters, effective scares, and a healthy dose of smart screenwriting. It surprised me that the director/writer was able to accomplish with so little. BURY THE BRIDE is Spider One’s second effort and it just doesn’t live up to expectations I had after watching ALLEGORIA. Unfortunately, Spider One seems to have taken more pages from his brother’s playbook. Every character is crass, cliche, and make the stupidest decisions to service the plot. The closest thing to a running joke this film has is that all of the gals wear ironic tee shirts that reflect their personality. The guys on the other hand, have ironic trucker hats to match. How cute. That’s about as deep as these characters go. This group makes the cardboard cast of 31 feel fully formed. Instead of the intriguing and memorable characters we got in every segment of ALLEGORIA, we got cardboard cliches of the smart gal, the slut, the overprotective sister, and the clueless bride to root for. On the dudes’ team, we’ve got the skuzzy one, the big skuzzy one, Chaz Bono, and the other skuzzy one. That’s not a lot of variety and shows a true lack of interest in making actual characters from those behind and in front of the camera.

Speaking of writing, there aren’t two sentences in a row that don’t have the word “fuck” or something worse in it. Everything feels underwritten and generic, as if any of the characters could say any of the lines. Even when characters try to get deep with historical quotes, it feels like this all was written way too quickly with absolutely no kind of oversight.

Spider One also follows in his brother’s footsteps by casting his girlfriend Krsy Fox in the lead, just as Zombie casts Sheri Moon in all of his films. Fox proved she had some acting chops in ALLEGORIA, but you wouldn’t know it by seeing her performance here. Most of the time she’s simply taking up space and when she tries to go for some method acting, it just doesn’t resonate. The rest of the cast is lackluster as well. Scout Taylor-Compton can act when given the right material. All she has to do is prove why her character would take this leap of faith and marry someone she doesn’t know, but neither Compton nor the script can take the time to explain this. Because of this lack of information, Compton’s character seems like a total idiot not knowing key secrets about her beau.

The rest of the cast is pretty bad, unfortunately. Chaz Bono, yes, that Chaz Bono, plays Silent Bob for half the film, then switches character midway through for very little reason. Lyndsi LaRose is great eye candy, and Spider One gives her time to show off her dance moves as she shakes her booty in front of the bachelors against the lights of their pick-em-up truck. That’s the closest thing to a well-choreographed scene Spider One gives us with this one and it’s a music video slo-mo of a girl dancing seductively. Dylan Rourke’s David is supposed to be the ringleader of this group, but his delivery makes him feel like he’s simply lampooning SLING BLADE. The rest of the gang are forgettable. The only actor in the bunch that has some presence is Rachel Brunner who plays the nerdy childhood friend of June.

Spider One pays homage to another film with a big reveal halfway through that changes the genre. If I mention the movie, it gives away the twist, so I won’t, but it’s probably the one you are thinking. While I can appreciate a good homage, simply copying it, right down to the reveal, isn’t something worth praising. Once the other foot drops, things pick up a bit and there is less clunky dialog and more action. That’s a plus, but really, the action isn’t breaking any new ground. As I said before, how Compton’s June didn’t know David’s secret is ridiculous and simply bad writing.

BURY THE BRIDE is bad all around. It’s disappointing. After seeing what Spider One could do with ALLEGORIA, I’m hoping that BURY THE BRIDE is just a prime example of the sophomore slump rather than an indication that this is all we have to expect from the filmmaker in the future. Here’s hoping he gets all of this crap out of his system with BURY THE BRIDE and Spider One’s next endeavor is more like his debut film. Everyone looks up to their big brother, but in this case, I hope Spider One takes less pages from the Rob Zombie playbook for his next one.
Check out the trailer here!!