LOWLIFES (2024)

New streaming on Tubi!
Directed by Tesh Guttikonda, Mitch Oliver.
Written by Al Kaplan.
Starring Amanda Fix, Matthew MacCaull, Brenna Llewellyn, Elyse Levesque, Josh Zaharia, Cassandra Sawtell, Richard Harmon, Kevin McNulty, Ben Sullivan, Alexander Calvert, Dayleigh Nelson, Todd Masters
Check out the trailer here!!

LOWLIFES begins like most horror movies do—a breathless guy races through the woods only to be met with the blade of an unseen killer. After that dude being taken care of quickly, we cut to a family of four, camping in what we can assume to be the same woods. This is an extremely typical family with the straight laced patriarch Keith (Matthew Macaull) cooking up some barbecue, doting mom Kathleen (Elyse Levesque), rebellious teen Amy (Amanda Fix) and spunky youngster eager to gain Dad’s approval Jeffrey (Josh Zaharia). It’s not soon after the typicalness of this family is established and all the cliches are addressed that another cliché shows up in the form of a pair of hick locals, Vern (Richard Harmon) and Billy (Ben Sullivan) who are looking for their brother Melior, who we can assume is the dead guy from the beginning, but still have time to threaten the family with a little hillbilly hospitality. But soon after the cast is established, LOWLIFES switches gears and becomes a bit more unpredictable, breaking some cliches, and addressing some new ones, making what first felt like a city folk being terrorized by hillbillies tale into something completely different.

I don’t want to reveal the twist of LOWLIFES, though the reveal does come pretty early in the story. It does separate this film from the rest of the herd and makes it a bit more unpredictable as expectations are flopped, so while I kind of saw the twist coming, I still appreciated it when it indeed does happen. What transpires is a fairly gory and relentless little movie where the entire cast literally tears each other apart. The gore is not over the top, but there is a lot of death and blood to go around here.

I also felt the lead performers were great in their respective roles. Matthew Macaull has a Jake Gyllenhaal look to him that makes him look respectable one minute and out of control the next. But it is Amanda Fix’s Amy that goes through the most twists and turns here and she molds those emotions sharply. I also have to note an exceptional performance by Brenna Llewellyn, one of the local girls who shows a lot of grit in very physical performance. And it was interesting seeing Richard Harmon in a smaller role. Harmon often plays the creepy guy who is not David Dastmalchian, yet like Dastmalchian, Harmon seems to put a lot of thought and effort into every genre role he takes.

LOWLIFES turned out to be better than expected in terms of acting, plot twists, and all out production. It’s listed as a Tubi Original and while not all of those are good, this is one of the best ones I’ve seen so far. It’s a film that has unexpected bite to it that will make you flip and flop as to who you want to survive, if any of the cast at all. While the city slickers versus country folk battle has been done before, LOWLIFES delivers something a little different and I can appreciate that.