The balance of cringe as entertainment is a hard one to strike. Cringe comedy, as of late, has a tendency to devolve into being mean-spirited; I’ve found that cringe in genre films can just fall flat on its face. Crumb Catcher, the first feature from writer-director Chris Skotchdopole, takes basic social faux pas to the absolute worst, most cringe-inducing extent. While I found it a pretty competent thriller, the character motives and relationships bring the movie a step down.
Newlyweds Shane (co-writer Rigo Garay) and Leah (Ella Rae Peck) plan to escape to her boss’s home for a brief honeymoon before starting the next phase of their lives. Not only are they now husband and wife, but Leah is also Shane’s publicist; he has a heavily advertised novel hitting the shelves in mere weeks. However, Shane begins to feel apprehensive about the book, which annoys the business-minded Leah.
Their already strained marriage crumbles even further when annoying caterer John (John Speredakos) and his wife Rose (Lorraine Farris) show up at the house unannounced. With a less-than-flattering video of Shane as blackmail, John and Rose attempt to coerce the newlyweds into investing in their incredibly pointless product: the Crumb Catcher, a crappy semi-automated table broom. As the night progresses and the salespeople progress from nuisances to unhinged captors, Shane attempts to defuse his already imploding marriage and get out of the house alive.
From start to finish, Skotchdopole crafts a masterfully uncomfortable atmosphere. The single location, an isolated cabin, automatically lends itself to a claustrophobic feel as the film goes on. Skotchdopole’s direction and Adam Carboni’s cinematography make the home somehow feel smaller with no real place to run or hide. The shots devolve from clean pans and zooms into disorienting, circling shots and quick cuts as the plot progresses. The chaos of the cinematography and editing line up with Shane desperately trying to dig himself out of the hole he created. The audience becomes forced to sit through each agonizing, cringeworthy minute of John’s poor attempts to be a salesman. Towards the end of the film, Carboni and Skotchdopole kick their talents up a notch during what might be one of the best car chases of the year. It’s a fantastic final set piece to cap off the previous hour of slowly building frantic energy.
Unfortunately, where Crumb Catcher dips in quality is its characters. John and Rose serve their purposes and both actors commit to the bit entirely. Speredakos, whom horror fans might recognize from Ti West’s House of the Devil (2009), harnesses a sort of manic energy and heightens it as he’s constantly pushed aside and ignored. Farris matches this same angry mania for most of the film as well, though Rose’s arc is a little more unclear. John and Rose’s relationship is fraught, but the cracking facade at least has a clearly communicated cause: financial issues and infidelity.
The same can’t really be said for the central relationship between Shane and Leah. Both Garay and Peck give their all to the roles, but unfortunately, the characterization remains one-note for the bulk of the runtime. From literally their first minute on screen, it’s obvious their marriage will probably end in divorce. As the film goes on, Skotchdopole drops clues about why Shane and Leah are incompatible but never elaborates further. Potentially interesting points of conflict get brought up–like Shane being uncomfortable with Leah’s personal and financial interest in his fraught relationship with his alcoholic father–but are dropped to get back to the hostage shenanigans. Neither Shame nor Leah are given room to breathe and develop as characters beyond trying to escape John and Rose’s machinations.
Crumb Catcher is a solid, captivating, cringeworthy thriller. Its lead characters’ doomed marriage, the uncomfortable behavior of its antagonists, and the direction and cinematography perfectly framing these interactions make a perfectly agonizing atmosphere to sit through. However, the muddled characterization of Shane and Leah and the inconsistent level of mutual disdain the couple has for each other stop this film from totally matching its potential. Still, Crumb Catcher provides enough skin-crawling cringe for an awfully fun watch.
Review Courtesy of Red Broadwell
Feature Image Credit to Obscured Pictures via IMDb
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