“Easter Bloody Easter” (2024) is a budget horror film with Diane Foster pulling double duty directing her first feature film and starring as the protagonist, Jeanie, who resembles the love child of Sally Kirkland and Anya Taylor-Joy. Wahlberg, Texas is suffering from a rash of brutal murders and disappearances. With her best friend Carol (Kelly Grant), a mother of four, at her side, Jeanie decides to investigate in hopes that it will help resolve her latest marital woe while the undeterred Mary Lou (Allison Lobel, who also wrote the film), the head of the church committee, prepares for the biggest social event of the year, Easterpalooza. They discover that the culprit is someone among them. This familiar face has become the Jackalope and commands an army of bunnies to do their bloody bidding.
Come for the horror. Stay for the townspeople. “Easter Bloody Easter” is what you would get if no one on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” had powers, the demons did not start turning up until high school was a faded memory, and the hellmouth was underneath Texas’ version of Stars Hollow from the “Gilmore Girls.” The Brits have been vying for the lead in budget horror with a steady stream of cheap flicks of varying quality usually focused on a well-known theme like nursery rhymes, but Foster and Lobel blow them out of the water by having a sense of humor.
At first glance, the characters seem like archetypes with a mean streak, but as the movie unfolds, they reveal themselves to be loveable, problematic, fun people. Jeanie and her husband were popular in high school, but their marriage has soured with Jeanie drowning her sorrows in booze while other guys drool around Jeanie in hopes that their marriage will not last. Sam (Zach Kanner), the tin foil hat wearing local conspiracy theorist, offers his Jackalope theory to Jeanie and Carol, which galvanizes them to play detective.
Carol and her husband, Jim (Gavin K. Lee), are the paragon of relationships goals. Jim is in the lead for the best cinematic husband of 2024 and supports his wife taking off with her bestie by watching their rambunctious kids, packing them snacks, providing muscle when needed and keeping things sexy and educational. Carol is the comedic relief and keeps Jeanie’s moping in check. Mary Lou seems like the mean, domineering church lady in a loveless marriage to a man, Eugene (Miles Cooper), who adores her. She seems like a “True Blood” Sarah Newlin type, but when “Easter Bloody Easter” depicts the festivities, it is the biggest plot twist in the film. Easterpalooza is the event of the year. Mary Lou ends up stealing every scene and is the unofficial star of the movie.
Musicals can be hit or miss, and when it is the latter, it is usually the sign that the narrative has jumped the shark. “Easter Bloody Easter” makes the musical interludes feel organic and entertaining. The Bunny Hop Dance was off the hook. If the cast decided to adapt the film into an off-Broadway production, it would be a hit. The cast seemed like they were having a great time, and their attitude is infectious. The soundtrack for this film is so enjoyable that you may want to listen to it long after the movie ends. “The Bunny Hop” pays homage to “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” My pick was Black Waat3r’s “Follow,” which I played more than once.
There are some memorable side characters like Megan’s Dad (Michael McAdam), a candidate for greatest dad of 2024, who supports his bad ass daughter with a never-ending supply of Bagel Bites. Sally (Caitlin Oden), one of Mary Lou’s henchmen, hugs the margins and steals a few scenes as the unrequited loving doormat. Drag queen Beatrice Bunny (Levi Austin Morris) has a daytime persona as Mary Lou’s henchman who is always fanning himself dramatically but is no mindless sycophant.
The Jackalope mythology is thin, but functional as a running gag. A Jackalope is a man-sized bunny with antlers, a human who willingly becomes a shapeshifter for the power. Too bad the film never got the rights to Moloko’s “Killa Bunnies.” The transformation is kitsch inspired. The mythology provides momentum so “Easter Bloody Easter” does not just rest on the domestic drama or quirky townspeople. The horror is less terrifying and exploited for laughs. The bunny army is a mixture of real adorable bunnies and stuffed animals with lights for eyes, but the actors play it straight with the characters acting as if they are witnessing a mind-shattering terror. The denouement’s bunny massacre is hilarious as people run in terror with the practical effects clipped to them. The Jacakalope (Jamie B. Cline) is a notch below the portentous man size bunny in “Donnie Darko.” The best sight gag is an ineffective car maneuver joke, and it just gets more amusing from there with nods to Americans’ love for guns and inappropriate emotional reactions to disturbing news. I never actually laughed out loud, but there were so many great lines that if Foster and Lobel are aiming for cult status, i.e. long-term success, they will probably succeed.
If you are looking for scares, you will not find any here, but it does not suffer the same problem as a lot of other budget horror flicks in which the concept is the strongest aspect of the film, but the execution is a letdown, including the horror. Here the buckets of blood further the concept, and it is always a better strategy to not to take yourself too seriously. Foster is smart to play it straight with tongue firmly stuck in cheek. The action scenes are great with early high-pitched screams accompanying defensive moves that give way to steely-eyed determination as the characters go on the offense. “Easter Bloody Easter” suffers the same problem as most films and televisions series with a bigger budget. Nighttime scenes can be inscrutable, and I would urge all directors and editors to watch their films on a regular desktop or smartphone. Most films only play for a short time on a big screen, so they must look just as good in smaller dimensions with distracting reflective surfaces. “Easter Bloody Easter” could have been shorter if it had sacrificed parts of the domestic drama or did a better job of fleshing out the relationship and Lance (D’Andre Noire), Jeanie’s husband. The oneiric scenes were well-shot and evocative but slowed the film’s momentum down. The horror was a metaphor for acting out of character because of one’s inadequacies and threatening what you love, but it did not fully resonant. There is a plot twist with the domestic drama that no one will see coming so thank Lobel for spelling it out to make sure that the audience understood. It worked, but because it took so long to introduce Lance, I was only invested in him because Jeanie was. Otherwise, it was too melodramatic and led to a couple of plot holes.
If you love holiday-themed movies that take an opposite tone of the holiday, then “Easter Bloody Easter” is for you. The horror-comedy is silly, over-the-top fun, so if you are looking for something more substantial, keep it moving. I preferred this harmonious resolution over “Wicked Little Letters” (2024) in its understated approach to longstanding divisions. Monty Python would approve.
