Sometimes special things happen when you and your buddy(ies) are flipping through your various streaming services looking for something potentially entertaining to wile the night away with. In the present case, my buddy and I were perusing Amazon Prime for something spooky or stupid (the same methodology we employed at Blockbuster back in our college daze) when our eyes alighted (alit?) on the peculiar title of Bingo Hell.
How could we not?
As the title may have tipped off, the story centers on a slightly evil-leaning bingo hall that suddenly appears in a neighborhood that’s experiencing the trauma of combined decline and gentrification. The remaining OG residents are being squeezed by the shifting economic milieu and feel like their very way of life is being threatened. Enter the bingo hall, which seems to have quite the influence on the locals. Indeed, it seems to be an Elseworlds version of Needful Things going on here, as the malevolent proprietor provides those down on their luck with what it is they need/desire, only for them to essentially lose their very souls in the process (if not worse). It’s up to a relatively ragtag squad of denizens to face the demon and exorcise him from their town.
As somewhat silly as the premise is, things are played pretty straight here, which works both positively and negatively for the film as a whole. On the one hand, the overt campiness of similar fare is avoided, allowing the threat to actually be perceived as such. Moreover, the messaging about the pernicious dangers of gentrification are able to properly resonate with the audience. On the other hand, there is often a distinct lack of general fun, and several scenes just seem to limply sit there, bogging down the pace and becoming dull in between more exciting bits. Admittedly, some decent characterization is occurring in these parts, but they just lack the oomph of their surroundings.
Thankfully for the production as a whole, the main actors are damn solid in their roles. Richard Brake, whose darkly charismatic performance in Rob Zombie’s 31 put him into my consciousness, cheeses it up a bit here, but still presents a slimily entertaining bingo hall owner with the power to really fuck with you. He faces off against a worthy opponent in Adriana Barraza, with whom I’m not familiar, but who really sells it as a woman seeing her very social fabric disintegrate around her and both wanting and needing to fight back, to re-establish some sort of control and comfort. The rest of the cast is somewhat hit-or-miss, but the general feel is solid. Visually speaking, most of the film is pretty standard and straightforward, but the bits inside the bingo hall are nicely colorful and expressive, evoking memories of music videos from the mid- and late-90s with the various lenses and strongly saturated hues. Otherwise, it’s nothing noteworthy.
And that’s kinda how we felt at the end, that we had seen a solid flick with some good performances, but ultimately the affair left us wanting more somehow, something beyond a riff on Needful Things. Granted, the socioeconomic themes helped, but there just wasn’t enough to really sink our teeth into, to truly recommend to someone passing by. That said, if you need some slightly out-of-the-ordinary horror with minimal gore and an actual message, then you could do a whole helluva lot worse than Bingo Hell, especially if you’re a Prime subscriber. My buddy and I were mostly entertained, our evening not at all ruined, so that’s a plus in my book, given the range of offerings one can find these days on the streams.
Allusions of Grandeur 