Geekscape Movie Reviews: A24’s ‘Slice’ Is Overstuffed

After watching A24‘s own Hereditary, I was salivating for more horror films from this independent production company. Then, Slice pops up on my Vudu and bam; I rent it after giving the trailer a view. The film’s poster made it look like an odd throwback to those Friday nights at the video store, picking a movie from the art alone. It’s got pizza, a fun font, and a werewolf on the cover, sold. Let’s see what first time director and writer Austin Vesely delivers.

The story is crowded with characters and sub-plots so hold on while we fly through them. The fictional town of Kingfisher is a world where ghosts walk among us (and have their own section of town), werewolves ride motorcycles, and other forms of magic live. When a pizza delivery driver is murdered, the cops are looking for someone to blame. Why not a ghost or a werewolf?

Mayor Tracy, played by a wonderfully wacky Chris Parnell does his best to work with the police, the press, and an odd cult led by an unnerving Vera Marcus (Marilyn Dodds Frank) to keep the town whole. Tracy paints some interesting objects in his office that gave me a good chuckle.

The now undead pizza delivery driver (played by Vesely, the director/writer) works for an outlandish pizza joint called Perfect Pizza. Paul Scheer (How Did This Get Made, The League) plays Jack, the manager, and stumbles to keep the place running after the murder. But Astrid (Zazie Beetz) puts her delivery jacket back on to help the crew of Heather (Catherine Cunningham), Joe the wise ghost (Lakin Valdez), and Scooter (Rudy Galvan) keep the pies flying out the door.

A smart but young reporter named Sadie (Rae Gray) suspects something odd is going on with the cult protesting outside the strip mall where Perfect Pizza is located. Sadie and her photographer, Jackson, (Joe Keery of Stranger Things) work together and try to figure out the secret of who the towns serial killer is.

Lastly, there’s a detective named Mike (Tim Decker) that is hell-bent on blaming Dax (Chance the Rapper) for the murders that have started. The grudge goes back many years to a previous case detective Mike swears Dax was the killer in, but of course wasn’t.

Slice jams a lot of story in 83 minutes. Most of the time I got lost on who was doing what and why. Slice had fun characters, but had too many moving parts to absorb. The film has some cheesy/funny moments that would play well with friends and some beers. Austin Vesely gives you a decent starter flick for the Halloween season, but falls flat because of the bloated plot.

Slice Needs More and Less of:

Slice needs more of Y’lan Noel. His character Big Cheese was delightfully weird and over the top. Sadly Noel’s scenes only last a few minutes and end far too quickly.

Slice needs fewer side stories, sometimes less is better. Also, Chance the Rapper’s Halloween store makeup he was wearing in his wolf form was wack. I take my werewolf makeup very serious, and this makeup job appeared rushed and unfinished. If your story wraps around a werewolf then that beast better look savage, not like a high school cosplay.

Final Grade: C

Thanks for reading, and check out our podcast Analog Jones and the Temple of Film. We are a VHS Podcast that breaks down the box art, trailers and behind the scenes.

– Stephen M. Bay