Jason Lei Howden
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Filmography
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Connections, in both directions
The World , the frenetic, punk-rock direction of Crank , and the violent social commentary of The Running Man , you’d get something like the neon-soaked, morbidly comic, cleverly violent Guns Akimbo from writer/director Jason Lei Howden.
Filled with visceral violence, copious car-nage and pitch black humour (much comedy is mined from Miles' attempts to do seemingly simple tasks with his new enhancements), Guns Akimbo feels like the mutated offspring of The Running Man , Escape From New York and Edwards Scissorhands, with a side-order sensibility borrowed from Jason Statham's Crank .
Imagine a third Crank movie combined with Grand Theft Auto (or perhaps Borderlands), a handful of edgy comic books, and a bunch of old dance music and you’re halfway to understanding how insane this movie is.
Think of Crank , the action cult classic where Jason Statham plays a guy who has to keep his heart rate at a certain level, and double its intensity.
With Guns Akimbo , director Jason Lei Howden ( Deathgasm ) has made a film that feels as though it escaped from the Crank cinematic universe.
It’s like someone put Crank and Scott Pilgrim vs.
The title Guns Akimbo alludes to both Chow Yun-Fat's favoured wielding strategy in John Woo flicks ( Hard-Boiled as well as Woo's Hard Target are referenced literally) and the bonded chaos of these two characters.
“Guns Akimbo” is the movie I think “Hardcore Henry” wanted to be a few years back, except that aggressive and hyper-caffeinated adventure didn’t have the luxury of Daniel Radcliffe having guns sewn to his hands.
It’s more Hardcore Henry than Robocop .
While its neon-lit cityscapes and constant scuffling are reminiscent of the John Wick series, Howden’s offering is more in spirit of Ilya Naishuller’s Hardcore Henry (2015).
But a small cult audience (say, viewers who liked things like Crank , Crank: High Voltage , and Hardcore Henry ) may find Guns Akimbo similarly entertaining.
Braindead (1992)
Directed by Peter Jackson
influenced Deathgasm (2015), Guns Akimbo (2020)
Themes Visuals
What we have here is an unhinged horror comedy in the sanguinary Kiwi tradition of Peter Jackson’s epic 1992 gorefest “Dead Alive.”
Deathgasm is a bloody, head-banging ball of fun, gore and soul-shaking music, and fans of films like Dead Alive and Evil Dead will find a lot to love in its embrace of splattery shenanigans and the idea that staying true to yourself might someday save the world.
Deathgasm is firmly in the tradition of Peter Jackson’s Dead Alive, with some Evil Dead thrown in for good measure.
The fast-paced approach works so well for the film and while it’s very 2020, the film also feels like it could have played alongside Die Hard , Commando and Dead Alive all at the same time.
Still, this film is the sequel to The Truman Show that we deserve.
It attracts millions of viewers, whom Howden portrays, The Truman Show -like, watching from the comfort of various modest hovels.
Like a deranged version of “The Truman Show,” folks log on to see peasants battle to the death and watch the worst of the worst brawl it out for total supremacy via drone feeds and pirated broadcasts.
Spectators watch remotely, à la “The Truman Show.”
Indeed, in the ways that Guns Akimbo engages violence and televisual stimulation, it could easily be a sequel to Cronenberg's Videodrome or Shin-ya Tsukamoto's Tetsuo , two films where this biomechanical fusion feature prominently.
The Running Man (1987)
Directed by Paul Michael Glaser
influenced Guns Akimbo (2020)
Themes Plot Characters
The World , the frenetic, punk-rock direction of Crank , and the violent social commentary of The Running Man , you’d get something like the neon-soaked, morbidly comic, cleverly violent Guns Akimbo from writer/director Jason Lei Howden.
Filled with visceral violence, copious car-nage and pitch black humour (much comedy is mined from Miles' attempts to do seemingly simple tasks with his new enhancements), Guns Akimbo feels like the mutated offspring of The Running Man , Escape From New York and Edwards Scissorhands, with a side-order sensibility borrowed from Jason Statham's Crank .
Nix is the "star" of a web-series called "SKIZM" that is essentially The Running Man playing out on city streets like a bloodier "Pokémon GO".
The film’s Skizm villains feel like they’re right out of The Running Man or Avenging Force and that’s a good thing, trust me.
Filled with visceral violence, copious car-nage and pitch black humour (much comedy is mined from Miles' attempts to do seemingly simple tasks with his new enhancements), Guns Akimbo feels like the mutated offspring of The Running Man , Escape From New York and Edwards Scissorhands, with a side-order sensibility borrowed from Jason Statham's Crank .
When he says he couldn't hurt a fly, I thought about fellow lonely boy Norman Bates at the end of Psycho , which led me to Alfred Hitchcock and how Vertigo is possibly the most personal expression of self-loathing ever produced for popular consumption on a Hollywood backlot.
Clearly, they’ve never watched any of Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead movies.
Not since Sam Raimi's Evil Dead or Peter Jackson's Braindead have we seen this level of splatterpunk filmmaking – a cross between Night of the Demons (the original one, of course) and a Tenacious D skit.
Deathgasm is a bloody, head-banging ball of fun, gore and soul-shaking music, and fans of films like Dead Alive and Evil Dead will find a lot to love in its embrace of splattery shenanigans and the idea that staying true to yourself might someday save the world.
First-time director and avowed metal maniac Jason Lei Howden sprays his splatstick influences (Peter Jackson’s Bad Taste, Sam Raimi’s first two Evil Dead films, Shaun of the Dead) all over the place, but still manages to leave his own hyperactive signature on the genre.
Deathgasm is firmly in the tradition of Peter Jackson’s Dead Alive, with some Evil Dead thrown in for good measure.
The film’s Skizm villains feel like they’re right out of The Running Man or Avenging Force and that’s a good thing, trust me.
Like a Hard Boiled Edward Scissorhands.
While clearly this isn’t a film to be taken seriously for one single second, the injuries sustained by Miles when guns are nailed into his hands are a constant distraction (not unlike the poorly conceived man/machine hybrids of Neill Blomkamp’s 2013 film Elysium ).
Later, Howden cuts to this guy watching and reacting to what's happening to Miles and Nix on an ancient portable television, a reveal that reminded me a lot of the family huddled in front of a television-turned-fireplace in the post-apocalypse of The Terminator.
Weaving did this in Ready Or Not just last month, and Nerve offered a similar premise in 2016, and had the bonus of a charming rom-com in its mix.
But a small cult audience (say, viewers who liked things like Crank , Crank: High Voltage , and Hardcore Henry ) may find Guns Akimbo similarly entertaining.