| Bitch Ass | |
|---|---|
 Official release poster | |
| Directed by | Bill Posley |
| Written by | Jonathan Colomb Bill Posley |
| Starring | Tony Todd |
| Cinematography | Steven Parker |
| Music by | Joseph Mohan |
Production company | Zebra Kidd Productions |
| Distributed by | Quiver Distribution |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 83 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Bitch Ass is a 2022 American crime horror film directed by Bill Posley and starring Tony Todd. [1] It is Posley's feature directorial debut. [2]
The film opens with a framing device, where Tony Todd introduces the movie, claiming it to have been previously lost media and praising the titular character's place in Black horror as the first masked black serial killer.
Cecil is a young boy who lives with his abusive, religious grandmother during the 1970s. His sole joys are boardgames and the local beauty Marsia. This leads him to get bullied by some of the other kids, particularly as Spade is dating Marsia. The bullies call him "bitch ass" and eventually Spade goads the others into committing a brutal assault on Cecil that involves slicing off parts of Cecil's face.
Approximately 20 years later, Cecil's grandmother has died. Spade, has grown to be a small-time thug with a gang made up of local kids. When he learns of her death he decides to task them with robbing the place, as he believed it to have been empty. Among these kids is Marsia's son Q, who she wants to gain a better life by attending college.
Shortly after breaking into the house they discover that it has been set up with various tricks and traps that mimic popular board games like Jenga and Operation . They learn that all of these games were set up by "Bitch Ass", who is revealed to be the alter ego of Cecil, whose mind is now broken due to years of abuse. Bitch Ass picks them off one by one, only sparing Q because the boy empathized with him. Marsia and Spade arrive and are also captured. Bitch Ass forces Spade to play him in a deadly game of Battleship, during which Spade experiences genuine remorse for his past actions. Bitch Ass then forces Spade to wear a gas mask filled with poisonous gas.
It is revealed that Cecil's grandmother is not dead and has been monitoring Q. Marsia is brought to Q, causing the boy to realize that he must challenge Bitch Ass to another game if he and his mother are to survive. He and the killer play rock, paper, scissors, where each brutalizes their hand if they lose. Eventually this causes Marsia to snap and she attacks the grandmother. This distracts Bitch Ass, allowing Marsia to overpower him and escape with her son. The two return home, believing that they are safe. She soon discovers that this is not the case and that Bitch Ass will come for her, as he had left a Rubik's cube on her desk.
According to Posley, Clarence Williams III was considered for the role portrayed by Todd. [3]
The film premiered on March 14, 2022, at South by Southwest. [4] The film was also shown at the Chattanooga Film Festival in June 2022. [5]
It was announced in June 2022, that Quiver Distribution acquired North American rights to the film, which was released on October 14, 2022. [6] [7]
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes , 65% of 26 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 5.60/10.The website's consensus reads: "It's more entertaining in theory than execution, but if you're looking for an amusingly cheesy slasher, Bitch Ass should just about fit the bill." [8]
Carlos Aguilar of IndieWire graded the film a B− and wrote, "Invoking an oft-overlooked canon, actor turned director Bill Posley fabricates a highly entertaining homage to the Black horror of decades past with Bitch Ass..." [9]
Valerie Complex of Deadline Hollywood gave the film a positive review, calling it "a funny, charming piece of B-horror cinema that has what it takes to stand firm among the many B-movie cult classics." [10]
Nick Allen of RogerEbert.com gave the film a negative review and wrote, "There's just not enough imagination or tact to make this all unsettling or fun, even though a serial killer named Bitch Ass is a good hook." [11]
Meagan Navarro of Bloody Disgusting and Mary Beth McAndrews of Dread Central both awarded the film a three out of five score. [12] [13]
Anthony TiranTodd was an American actor known for his distinctly deep and gravely voice. He was best known for playing the titular character in the Candyman film series (1992–2021) and William Bludworth in the Final Destination franchise (2000–2025). For the former, he was nominated at the Critics' Choice and Fangoria Chainsaw Awards.
Hush is a 2016 American slasher film directed and edited by Mike Flanagan, and starring Kate Siegel, who also co-wrote the film with Flanagan. The film co-stars John Gallagher Jr., Michael Trucco, Samantha Sloyan, and Emilia "Emma" Graves. It was jointly produced by Trevor Macy through Intrepid Pictures and Jason Blum through Blumhouse Productions.
Todd Nunes is an American screenwriter, a director of horror films, and novelist. His movies include the holiday horror film All Through the House and his book series called The Slasher Universe.
Terrifier is a 2016 American slasher film written, edited, co-produced, and directed by Damien Leone. The film stars Jenna Kanell, Samantha Scaffidi, Catherine Corcoran, and David Howard Thornton. The plot centers on partygoer Tara Heyes (Kanell) and her sister Victoria (Scaffidi), who become targets of the enigmatic serial killer known only as Art the Clown (Thornton) on Halloween night.
Daniel Robitaille, colloquially known as Candyman, is a fictional character and the main antagonist of the Candyman film series. The character originated in Clive Barker's 1985 short story "The Forbidden". In the film series, he is depicted as an African-American man who was brutally murdered for a forbidden 19th-century interracial love affair; he returns as an urban legend, and kills anyone who summons him by saying his name five times in front of a mirror. The character is played by Tony Todd in Candyman (1992), Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh (1995), and Candyman: Day of the Dead (1999); Todd reprises the role in Candyman (2021), a sequel of the original 1992 film, with additional forms – souls brought into the Candyman "hive" – Sherman Fields, William Bell, Samuel Evans, George Stinney, James Byrd Jr., Gil Cartwright, and Anthony McCoy.
Candyman is a 2021 supernatural horror film directed by Nia DaCosta, who co-wrote the screenplay with Jordan Peele and Win Rosenfeld. It is a direct sequel to the 1992 film of the same name and the fourth film in the Candyman film series, based on the short story "The Forbidden" by English author Clive Barker and set between the films Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh (1995) and Candyman 3: Day of the Dead (1999). The film stars Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Teyonah Parris, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, and Colman Domingo. Vanessa Williams, Virginia Madsen, and Tony Todd reprise their roles from the original film.
Warhunt is a 2022 American horror film directed by Mauro Borrelli and starring Mickey Rourke.
Hellblazers is a 2022 American action horror film directed by Justin Lee, and starring Bruce Dern, Billy Zane, Tony Todd and Adrienne Barbeau.
Stream is a 2024 American slasher film co-produced, co-written, edited and directed by Michael Leavy, and starring Jeffrey Combs, Charles Edwin Powell, Tim Reid, Dee Wallace, Wesley Holloway, Sydney Malakeh, Jason Leavy, David Howard Thornton, Liana Pirraglia, Mark Haynes, Daniel Roebuck, Mark Holton, Felissa Rose, Danielle Harris, and Tony Todd in one of his final works before he died. It tells the story of a family vacationing at a small hotel as its apparent owner unleashes four masked killers on them while live-streaming the activities.
13 Fanboy is a 2021 American meta-slasher film directed by Deborah Voorhees and written and produced by her and Joel Paul Reisig. The film focuses on numerous actors that starred in a popular slasher film franchise who find themselves as the target of an obsessed fan that wants to replicate their death scenes in real life. It stars Hayley Greenbauer as Kelsie Voorhees, with Dee Wallace, Deborah Voorhees, C.J. Graham, Kane Hodder, Corey Feldman, Lar Park Lincoln, Judie Aronson, and Tracie Savage as fictionalized versions of themselves.
The Strangers film series consists of American psychological horror films. Based on an original story by Bryan Bertino, the plot centers around three masked psycho-sociopathic home invaders that prey on the innocent owners. Though the first film was marketed as "based on a true story", this was a slight misdirect as the filmmaker stated that he wrote the concept from a series of break-in burglaries that took place in his neighborhood when he was growing up, as well as borrowing elements from the Manson Family Tate murders. Continuing this marketing technique, a "based on a true story" tag was also included at the beginning of the sequels.
J. R. Bookwalter is an American filmmaker, screenwriter, and producer from Akron, Ohio. He is best known for directing low-budget horror, action, and science fiction films, including The Dead Next Door, Robot Ninja, Ozone (1993), and Polymorph (1996). He is the founder of Tempe Entertainment which ran from 1988 until 2019 when the company's name changed to Makeflix.
Devilreaux is a 2023 American horror thriller film written and directed by Thomas J. Churchill and starring Vincent M. Ward and Tony Todd.
The Malevolence film series consists of American slasher-horror crime films, written, directed, and produced by Stevan Mena. The series center around various groups of people who come into contact with a serial killer named Martin Bristol, who was kidnapped as a child and raised in an abusive upbringing by a murderer named Graham Sutter. The series explores the investigations surrounding his crime scenes, and attempts made by law enforcement to put an end to his murderous pattern.
Vindicta is a 2023 American slasher film from the screenplay of Ian Neligh directed by Sean McNamara. It stars Elena Kampouris, Jeremy Piven and Sean Astin. The film centers on a rookie paramedic whose first days in a city plagued by riots becomes all the more terrifying when a sadistic serial killer begins targeting a select group of people, leading her to learn of a dark secret with connections to her own family.