[Event Review] Panic Fest 2021: A Great Time for Some Sick Laughs

Panic Fest, held yearly as the Screenland Armour, is a mainstay in the Kansas City film scene, and thus an event that is near and dear to my heart. It’s also just an amazingly fun time – past years have debuted projects like Elijah Wood’s Maniac remake and What We Do in the Shadows.

This year, since the festival went virtual, I had the opportunity to watch almost every feature. And while it was packed full of great work, the real standouts of this year had a common theme – they were all funny. Maybe after this year, I was just in the mood to laugh. In any event, here’s my breakdown of the top films of Panic Fest 2021, horror comedy edition, presented in no particular order. 

Benny Loves You

(Darkline Entertainment, Dir. Karl Holt)

This UK romp asks the question “What if Toy Story 3 was more honest about its terrifying premise?” Basically, a man desperate to get his act together attempts to get rid of childish things, (including a beloved stuffed animal, who comes back to life) and starts killing people to win back his owner’s favor. While the puppetry and animation are not the most sophisticated in the world, the silliness and warmth of the film more than makes up for it. Also, this film wins Best Kill of the festival hands down, absolutely no contest. Once this one hits streaming, give it a shot for 94 minutes of bloody fun. Get it? Cuz it’s British.

Keeping Company

(Dir. Josh Wallace)

This film pokes fun at predatory insurance lenders by turning the tables: two door-to-door salesmen end up trapped in the basement of a matriarch with unclear but surely sinister intentions. While it doesn’t say anything particularly nuanced about the true evils of corporate America (the film’s many antagonists are well-executed but one-note caricatures), the plot itself is so zany that you see none of it coming, but so well put together it all makes perfect sense. Also, this film probably carries some of the best performances of the Panic Fest offerings – Devin Das and Achmed Bharoocha play off each other beautifully as the salesmen, and Andy Buckley has a sadly brief but incredibly engaging turn as an adjuster in over his head. 

Vicious Fun

(Particular Crowd, Dir. Cody Calahan)

This film seems born of a Mad Lib, or maybe a particularly twisted role-playing game: A down on his luck critic accidentally stumbles into a support group for serial killers and must attempt to survive. While this film seems ripe for the opportunity to dive into time-honored tropes, the characters of the serial killers are fresh takes instead of tired retellings. Even the killer whose MO is “find a cabin of co-eds and go into a blood rage” (because you know there has to be one) has wonderful moments of character development. By leaning heavily on the idea of these killers as people – strange, terrible people, but people – the film manages to pack a stunning amount of depth into its 96 minute runtime. The critic is played very well by Evan Marsh, because he seems to understand that his job is to present a blank foil for the other characters to play off of and not about staking his own claims for his role. This one also has probably the highest production values of anything on this list, which means if you appreciate cinematography , this one is the one to see. 

Red Snow

(26th Ave Films, Dir. Sean Nichols Lynch)

Has enough time on the cultural clock elapsed for more popular supernatural romance content? Red Snow asks this question, sort of: it follows an aspiring vampire romance novelist who finds herself beset by actual (and sexy) vampires on Christmas. This film could have gone in several directions, most of them not great from a progressive perspective, but it ends up perfectly hitting the mark with the main character (Dennice Cisneros) displaying her agency, both sexually and in terms of her survival. It also never ever punches down – the fact that the main character writes vampire romance novels is never a point of ridicule, which is refreshing in a world where writing romance or erotica is viewed as an inferior form of art with an unmistakable gendered component, since its assumed women are both the writers and the majority audience. What we end up with, then, is something fun and self-aware, that doesn’t apologize for what it is because it recognizes that it has never needed to. 

While those were my top four coming out of Panic Fest, there’s a lot more good stuff to be had! If you’re in the mood for pure scares instead of gory laughs, I’d suggest The Stylist or The Djinn, and for contemplative emotional thrillers, An Unquiet Grave or Threshold. The Last Matinee also deserves a shoutout for being an undeniably fun return to a traditional slasher. While it doesn’t look like these films are off the festival circuit and thus widely available for streaming yet, keep them on your watch list for when they hit distribution. You won’t regret it. 

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