The Hills Have Guys.

Lowlifes is a 2024 horror film from directors Tesh Guttikonda and Mitch Oliver. Out of all of the films I’ve been watching on Tubi over the last month or so this is the most movie-like movie that was ever a movie. Written by Al Kaplan who also wrote and did the music for Zombeavers and Terrifier 2,

The film stars Amanda Fix as Amy, disgruntled teenager who finds herself on a vacation she hates with the family she doesn’t particularly like spending her vacation around. Her dad Keith (Matthew MacCaull) despite his strong jaw is a weenie of a suburban dad, her brother Jeffrey (Josh Zaharia) is also kind of a weenie and a mama’s boy, and her mother Kathleen (Elyse Levesque) is a mama’s boy’s mama.

The family has a choice encounter with two creepy hillbillies Vern (Richard Harmon) and Billy (Ben Sullivan) whose car is broken down, and they offer the two to spend the night at their family’s house in the middle of nowhere. The family’s house hosting sisters Savannah (Brenna Llewellyn) and Juli Ann (Cassandra Sawtell), not to mention hulking Big Mac (Dayleigh Nelson). But trouble is afoot as the family may or may not be cannibals who eat human flesh. Can our heroes survive the night and live to see another day? I have no clue, this is a horror movie after all.

I loved this movie.

Lowlifes is absolute genius, and for a film with such a simple premise it had me glued to my chair the entire hour and a half of its runtime. The actors are all fantastic and really get into their roles. There’s plenty of buildup to put you on edge and once the killing starts the deaths are insanely brutal. As always I’m ready to give credit when movies like this are willing to use practical effects, and they do not skimp out on the gore. There’s tons of blood, severed bodies, gouged out eyeballs, axe wounds, and all sorts of fun stuff in this movie.

And cannibalism. Because you can’t waste good food. At least not in this house. All this film is missing is a lesbian kissing scene, and oh wait it has that too. They really thought of everything for this slasher film.

My only complaint with this movie is that there is way too much talking and it isn’t written particularly well. They try to do a whole “yeah they’re cannibals but they also bicker like a normal family,” like the scene where the dad sends the one kid to their room because they misbehaved while killing someone. There’s a fine line between dark comedy and stupidity and this film crosses it a few times.

But overall, I will say that Lowlifes is a fantastic movie. If you want a comedy-ish slasher horror film that really cuts above the normal Tubi stuff, this is your film.

Rating: B+