JK Simmons is a toilet monster.

Glorious is without a doubt a Shudder film and I should have known that while searching for it on Amazon because, despite it being part of my Shudder subscription, none of the pages at Amazon decided to tell me this until after I had already paid and rented the film. What an absolute scam. But it is without a doubt a Shudder film, because only Shudder or possibly Troma would dare to continue down the route of “what if we had a demonic [noun] as the root of our film?”

The film comes to us from Rebekah McKendry, a name you might be familiar with if you’ve seen her 2019 Lifetime Original film Psycho Granny. Psycho Granny sounds like another Shudder film, apparently it is not in fact a slasher film about a demon geriatric serial killer. Oh well. Her prior film before that is in fact a Shudder movie as well, 2018’s “All the Creatures Were Stirring.”

Much like many other Shudder films, you hear the premise of Glorious and your reaction is likely one of two things; “that sounds moronic,” and “I’m listening.” It features our protagonist Wes played by Ryan Kwanten who I genuinely wondered if he was one of the Geico cavemen through the entirety of this movie. Turns out he was not. But he has the facial structure for it if they ever reboot the show. Ryan, don’t have your publicist pitch that reboot.

Wes is a guy distraught over his recently terminated relationship with his girlfriend Brenda, played by Sylvia Grace Crim. After a night of getting blackout drunk and burning many of his possessions at a highway rest stop, Wes enters a bathroom to blow chunks and wash himself up. Lo and behold, he finds himself locked in the bathroom with none other than an eldritch abomination inhabiting the corner bathroom stall played by none other than JK Simmons.

Ghat, as the creature calls itself, is a creature manifested into the world with the purpose of destroying it. If he wants to save existence, Wes is going to have to give a sacrifice and the key lies in the glory hole between the two stalls.

gularly held back by crappy films with terrible scripts (I’m talking about you, virtually every movie Kwanten was in from the last ten years). Ryan really carries the film given he spends the majority of the film solo and has to work with playing off of a disembodied voice, the disembodied voice of JK Simmons no less.

Wes is full of piss and vinegar, no matter how many times he fails to escape. JK Simmons also does a great job, his gravy-smooth voice coming through with exactly the compassion and anger you’d expect from a Lovecraftian horror. You do wonder how honest his intentions are with Wes, and Wes sounds just obviously innocent enough to make you realize he has his own inner-demons.

Glorious is a horror movie if you’re a massive germophobe, the film entirely taking place within the kind of truck stop restroom clean freaks couldn’t imagine in their wildest nightmares. There’s plenty of slapstick, disgusting toilet humor, and commentary on life to fill an unwashed toilet. It’s a really engaging movie. My only complaint is that it feels like an episode of a TV show that got stretched into a feature length film. Despite being only 80 minutes, it feels like a two hour ride.

Rating: A-