Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Slaxx’ on Shudder, A Silly, Bloody Movie About Killer Pants (Yes Killer Pants)

A somewhat cult-like clothing store (think The Gap meets Apple, ramped up to 11) is rolling out a new product launch: blue jeans that will conform to your body shape. As a shop works overnight to prep, they have no idea the hexed pants in the stockroom are thirsty for blood!

SLAXX: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Slaxx is a dumb schlocky horror cheapie, and that’s meant in the best possible way. Director Elza Kephart leads a team of game, young Canadian actors through a cheery, simple-enough bloodbath that’s just professional to be called a real movie, but still has the vibe of a well-put-together community center haunted house.

A stagey-looking hipster clothing store (Canadian Cotton Clothiers) is Instagram-ready at all times, hyping its fair trade policies and world-benefitting practices. We’re introduced to the world through Libby (Romane Denis), a doe-eyed newcomer thrilled to start work at the CCC. Brett Donahue is the brown-nosing manager and Stephen Bogaert is the Steve Jobs-like owner.

Tonight the store is in lockdown, as they will be first to present the revolutionary SuperShaper Jeans, the world’s first true one size fits all pants that, through some kind of tech that is never explained, will conform to any body type. (Well, any body type that is only five pounds over- or underweight. No one too skinny or fat should shop at the CCC!)

For reasons that do get explained, but it would be a spoiler to divulge, these pants are possessed and eager to kill. One by one, the sales associates meet their doom in increasingly ludicrous ways. Mess with these dungarees and you are done(garee)!

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Oddly enough, the envelope-pushing British auteur Peter Strickland just released a wild and hallucinatory film called In Fabric about a killer red dress. This is nowhere near that good, nor is it as good as Quentin Dupieux’s killer tire movie, Rubber. More than anything else Slaxx will remind you of inexpensive VHS-era exploitation pictures.

Performance Worth Watching: I don’t think it is unfair to say that fine acting is not what anyone is looking for in a movie like Slaxx. No one comes off poorly, but there isn’t evidence of any future award-winners here. Of the bunch, Sehar Bojani as the done-with-the-hype CCC employee Shruti avails herself best.

Memorable Dialogue: There’s a funny moment when, once the first body is discovered, Libby wants to warn people, but the wormy manager is hesitant to make waves. “Are you afraid there’s a killer out there?” “Yeah!” “Do you like being afraid?” “No.” “Do you want everyone else to be afraid, too? That’s not really showing team spirit!”

There’s also a point where someone says “are we talking about a pair of killer pants here?!!?”

Sex and Skin: There are comely lasses in tight jeans, it’s in the script!

Our Take: It’s important not to oversell it, but the twist at the end that explains what possesses the titular slacks actually does broaden the movie into something meaningful. I know, I know, the last thing you wanted was something as lame as a message film, but it is important, once in a while, to be reminded just how the goods we take for granted here in North America are manufactured.

But beyond that, yeah … killer pants that kill in creative ways. They also dance.

Our Call: STREAM IT. It’s 76 minutes and 30 seconds with credits. This brevity is very much to the film’s benefit. It’s a fun, dumb movie around which you do not need to build your entire evening. Having it on while you do something else — maybe fold laundry? — is totally appropriate.

Jordan Hoffman is a writer and critic in New York City. His work also appears in Vanity Fair, The Guardian, and the Times of Israel. He is a member of the New York Film Critics Circle, and tweets about Phish and Star Trek at @JHoffman.

Stream Slaxx on Shudder