BOWLHEAD (2023)

Short Film Review

Genre: Horror.

Director: Thomas Simon.

Actors: Eileen Grubba. Joe Hursley. Anthony Tamposi.

Seen at the Dark Red Film Festival

THE PREMISE:

"A passionate bowler resorts to nefarious ways to improve his game."

OUR MOVIE REVIEW:

Bowlhead successfully welds together the fun passion of bowling with the darker side of such zestfulness. This horrific result is zany, disturbing, and sinfully fun. 

Henry is a bowler. He rolls alone, practicing a 7-10 split at a wanna-be-hip alley in a dying strip mall. He wants to be a better bowler. And, perhaps, Henry, portrayed with deadpan realism by Joe Hursley, wants to be a better man. Perhaps. He also has a secret formula to improve his game.

Writer-director Thomas Simon presents his horror short perfectly. True to the game of bowling, Simon cleverly knocks down each pin, revealing what is hidden behind. Henry is sympathetic,  weird, helpful, and then sinister. Simon takes the everyday reality of Anywhere, California and throws on a complexity of fantastical nightmares - all in a short amount of time, all flawlessly paced, and beautifully captured.

After all, what is more scary than a bright blue bowling shirt? Only that which lies in that metaphorical gutter of every life.