In the wake of Hallmark Christmas movie One December Night, Bruce Campbell is back in the horror genre with Black Friday, a horror-comedy that was released on VOD today.
Campbell stars alongside Devon Sawa (“Chucky”), Ivana Baquero (Pan’s Labyrinth), Ryan Lee (Goosebumps), Stephen Peck, and Michael Jai White (Spawn) in Casey Tebo‘s horror-comedy, a group of characters stuck in a toy store with a horde of “demonic” shoppers.
Here’s the plot synopsis for Black Friday: “On Thanksgiving night, a group of disgruntled toy store employees begrudgingly arrive for work to open the store at midnight for the busiest shopping day of the year. Meanwhile, an alien parasite crashes to Earth in a meteor. This group of misfits led by store manager Jonathan (Campbell) and longtime employee Ken (Sawa) soon find themselves battling against hordes of holiday shoppers who have been turned into monstrous creatures hellbent on a murderous rampage on Black Friday.”
Bloody Disgusting’s The Boo Crew Podcast chats with Bruce Campbell in a brand new episode this week, which touches upon everything from Evil Dead to holiday horror movie Black Friday. What drew Campbell to his latest horror role, you might be wondering?
“I just wanted Casey [Tebo] to realize he’s not hiring Ash. I didn’t take the part because I thought I could make this manager into a macho hero. The whole point is… and that’s what I think makes most of the movie interesting… these are not the people you want to [get attacked] by aliens, especially on their worst day,” Campbell explains. “When they’re already completely overrun.”
He adds, “So I liked it because of that. And I liked the fact that my character is a loser manager of a loser toy store; that’s who you attack with aliens. Because now I’m interested.”
One of the other interesting things about Black Friday is that the film reunites Campbell with Robert Kurtzman, who he first worked with on Evil Dead II way back in the 1980s.
“The cool thing about Bob Kurtzman is that Bob goes all the way back to Evil Dead 2. So we called him “Grumpy Bob” back in those days… he had a little more edge to him, as the artiste special effects guy. Now he’s been beaten down enough he’s just like a normal guy. Bob’s great,” Campbell explains. “One of the nice things about hanging around for a while is you start to run into people over and over again. And some people are like a bad check… you don’t want them coming back but they keep coming back. And other people, like Bob, it makes you feel comfortable in your job. Cause you go, ‘Oh, Bob’s got this.’ You know that it’s gonna be fine. Bob’s worked on high budget, medium budget, low budget, nothing phases him. I think he did a great job. It’s really fun to come back and work with “Grumpy Bob” again.”
Will Black Friday end up spawning sequels the way Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead did? As always, “it all depends on how it does,” Campbell explains to The Boo Crew.
“If it does well, those producers will milk that teat. I don’t know. I hope so,” he notes.
You can listen to The Boo Crew’s full chat with Bruce Campbell below. And be sure not to miss Casey Tebo’s Black Friday, now available in select theaters and for digital rental/purchase!