Black Friday: Devon Sawa fights holiday shopper-monsters and wins the Girl. WIth a nude dude from the other movie.

 

Devon Sawa was the wunderkind of the 1990s, starring in some iconic coming-of-age movies with strong gay subtexts --  Night of the Twisters, The Boys Club, Wild America -- while getting the full Tiger Beat Fave Rave teen idol treatment.  In the 2000s he moved on to sleazy horror, like many former teen idols, and audiences moved on.  

After filling my review of Hacks with photos of the grown-up, bulked up, heavily inked Devon, I realized that I hadn't seen any of his work since Final Destination.  So I checked out his more recent work on the IMDB, looking for gay characters or subtexts.

No luck: a lot of gritty, hard-bitten cops, criminals, and cowboys who have sex with ladies. Two TV series: Nikita, with the icon of a lady showing her legs and the phrase "Looks do kill": and Somewhere Between, with an icon of a lady's face and bare shoulders looking bemused as she's floating in the air.  

 

The only one that appeared to have gay content was the horror/comedy Black Friday, about the day after Thanksgiving in the U.S., when shoppers mob the big box stores, jostling each other in search of deep discounts on Christmas presents. 

In this case, the shoppers turn into real life monsters, so toy store employees have to fight them off. I can imagine a lot of comedic bits, like a monster shopper using its disembodied arm to pull toys off a high shelf.  The Google AI notes that one of the characters is gay, and mentions a husband back home. 

Note: two movies called Black Friday, both about shoppers turning into monsters, premiered in 2020 and 2021.  This is the 2021 version.

Of course, I need to watch the trailer before investing in the whole thing.  

Scene 1: Pre-dawn, the morning after Thanksgiving. Toy store manager, horror veteran Bruce Campbell, says  "Happy Black Friday" over an intercom as Christmas music plays.  Horndog Devon Sawa makes a date with The Girl to get pancakes after the big rush is over.  It wouldn't be Christmas without the protagonist devoting his first scene to demonstrating that he's not gay.  

Femme Stephen Peck  assigns New Guy Ryan Lee to the registers.  Ryan Lee played Sue's gay friend on "The Middle," but most likely Stephen Peck, second from the left, is the one with the husband.  Unfortunately, the internet is full of another Stephen Peck, film legend Gregory Peck's son, so research is impossible.

Louis Kurtzman, who wears a flowery shirt, skates over to Gruff Michael Jai White,and announces that he's temping tonight. Flowery shirt -- maybe he's the one with the husband?

Left: Michael Jai White's physique.

Scene 2: Store Manager announces "There's no day more harmful than today." I thought stores made 30% of their sales on Black Friday.  New Guy, Gruff Guy, and a third employee pour booze into their coffees.

Scene 3: Showtime!  Everyone takes their places. They keep saying "tonight," but it must be before dawn on Friday.   

After a few shots of beserk, grabby shoppers, The Girl notices a shopper with head injuries growling about.  He rushes toward New Guy, who overturns a display of balls to stop him.

More after the break.

Scene 4: New Guy, hiding in the bathroom, whisper that there is something wrong with the shoppers.  A monster finds its way in!  

Cut to several employees hiding in the stock room.  Dour Devon says that "We gotta do something. We're one hour in to Black Friday!"

Scene 5: The Flowery Shirt Temp turns monster, and attacks New Guy. He had only one line.

Wait -- Ryan Lee didn't play Sue's gay friend in The Middle after all.  It was his lookalike Brock Ciarlelli, seen here trying to break into a three-way in Bros. So the Femme Floor Manager must be the one with the husband.

 Cut to a woman yells that they shouldn't let the shoppers gather; "They're building something!"

Scene 6: An employee says "At this point we're just in their way" as blood splatters over a Black Friday poster. "We're going to have to fight." Shots of the employees grabbing tools from housewares and clobbering monsters.  Toy stores sell wrenches? 

Just when they wonder how things can get worse: the lights go out!

More shots of employees running from monsters and fighting monsters. I was expecting toy-store or shopper-specific parodies.   The monsters should be continuing to shop in exaggerated, gruesome ways. These could be any monsters anywhere.

Scene 7: A rundown of the main cast, followed by a police car zooming down the dark street. The employees think they're saved, but the car crashes through the window: the cops have turned!  

Scene 8: Shots of monsters grabbing employees, with the tagline: "Don't let the holidays eat you alive." The end.

In case you're interested, Gruff Employee sacrifices himself to save New Guy, so there may be a little gay-subtext.  The only survivors are New Guy, Horndog Devon, and The Girl, so hetero-romance wins. But where's the guy with the husband?

I think the Google AI was referring to the other Black Friday shopper-monster movie, which is also a musical, for some reason, and stars musleman Curt Mega.

But there's no way I'm reviewing another Black Friday monster movie. Call me next November.

See also: Hacks: Disgraced comedian decides to turn lesbian, gay leather guy spirals, and there are some jokes.  With Devon Sawa

Jason Segel: Heterosexual college student, husband, and oldster.  But at least he shows us his d*ck