Dark humor is often employed as a way to explore and deal with difficult and upsetting topics in film. Often this use of dark humor actually has the effect of letting the audience come to profound realizations or acceptances. However there are also instances where the use of dark humor only comes across as crass and distasteful. Released in theaters and VOD/Digital on May 6, 2022 through Vertical Entertainment, where does Suicide For Beginners fall?
Directed by Craig Thieman (Park Acrobats series), the film follows self-confessed people hater Garrett (Wil Daniels: An American Tragedy 2007, Puppet Master 2012). Insecure and unhinged, Garrett has decided to kill the unrequited love of his life Mia (Sara Tomko: Once Upon a Time series, Resident Alien series). Holding Mia prisoner in his basement, his plan starts to unravel, and he soon finds himself on the path to becoming a fully fledged serial killer.
Suicide For Beginners opens with a monologue from Garrett as he lists all the advantages of killing yourself. This monologue is accompanied by Garrett buying various deadly items from
a hardware store as the cheery, upbeat score screams that this is all supposed to be funny. Only it isn’t and this is the pattern that plays out during the entirety of the film. Garrett whines and quips whilst doing stupid things and behaving like a psychopath and the underlining caveat is that the audience won’t mind they will be too busy guffawing.
One of the major problems with Suicide For Beginners is that Garrett has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. It is possible to guiltily like a villainous or divisive character and root for them in spite of their nefarious ways, but Garrett makes this impossible. Thus with our main character only inspiring disgust and the supporting characters not inspiring much more, audiences are not left with a lot to make Suicide For Beginners runtime worthwhile.
Additionally, Suicide For Beginners takes the kidnapping and potential murder of a woman, along with killing yourself, and presents it as a comedy of errors. However the film gets it wrong on
every level – tonally, visually and with characters that the audience could not care less about. As a result Suicide For Beginners comes across as extremely distasteful and tone deaf.
It is very hard to imagine who the intended audience for this film was supposed to be and as such who it will ultimately appeal to. The only potential point of interest for Suicide For Beginners, especially for long time Horror fans, would be to see Sid Haig (House of 1000 Corpses 2003, The Devil’s Rejects 2005) in his final film role. Although it is bittersweet to see Haig’s final performance in such a disappointing film. As a result, Cryptic Rock gives Suicide For Beginners 1 out of 5 stars.
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