Perhaps best known for playing Han in the massively popular Fast and Furious franchise, Sung Kang turned his hand to Horror for his feature directorial debut Shaky Shivers. Shown at Canada’s Dark Bridges Horror film festival earlier in 2023, it made a theatrical debut on September 21st through Cineverse, before becoming available on Screambox and Digital as of October 17th.
A fun little film, Shaky Shivers follows best friends Lucy (Brooke Markham: Friend Request 2016, In the Dark series) and Karen (VyVy Nguyen: Wasted 2019, Dawning 2022) who work together in an ice cream shop. On one fateful day they have already had to deal with one difficult customer who demanded free ice cream with a coupon which expired in 1987, when another strange customer (Erin Daniels: House of 1000 Corpses 2003, The L Word series) arrives and also starts demanding free food.
The encounter ends in a confrontation, with the stranger’s wolf puppet biting Lucy, and just like that a curse is placed upon her. The girls decide to wait it out at an abandoned summer camp to see if the curse is real. But their encounter with the strange customer has led to more than just a potential curse and Lucy and Karen soon find themselves battling a series of monsters and supernatural creatures.
Inspired by the Horror films that Kang enjoyed when he was younger, Shaky Shivers is unquestionably a tribute to ’80s Horror. Whilst the film is set in the ’90s, it looks to capture the look and feel of classic ’80s films which it does pretty successfully. That said, Shaky Shivers may be billed as a Horror Comedy, but the film is light on Horror preferring to instead focus on comic relief and one liners.
However, whilst Horror aficionados may be disappointed if they come to this hoping for scars and tension, as there is little of either, Shaky Shivers does work well as a gateway Horror. The film also makes great use of practical effects (thanks to Gabriel Bartalos who has worked on everything from 1990’s Darkman to 1992’s Leprechaun) and make-up, and the monsters do look effective… even if they won’t give you nightmares.
Furthermore, Shaky Shivers also relies heavily on the two central performances of Markham and Nguyen and luckily they are both great. They bounce off each other well and have good chemistry, they feel like two best friends, and it is fun to watch them stumble through a series of unfortunate events together.
A lightweight Horror, not to be taken too seriously, Shaky Shivers is a throwback to ’80s Horror with quirky characters and fun dialogue. Marking a solid debut from Kang that will keep your interest, Cryptic Rock gives Shaky Shivers 3 out of 5 stars.
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