Otis (2008)

Obese loser pedophile psycho and pizza delivery guy Otis (superbly played to creepy and intense perfection by Bostin Christopher) abducts lovely young teenager Riley (a winningly sparky portrayal by the foxy Ashley Johnson). However, Ashley manages to escape from Otis' clutches and alerts her family about where Otis lives. Things go extremely awry when the family decides to take matters into their own hands. Director Tony Krantz and writers Erik Jendresen and Thomas Schnauz ably concoct a wickedly warped, quirky, and often hilarious horror black comedy gut-buster that viciously satirizes the incompetence and insensitivity of the FBI and media alike, the dangerous foibles of gung-ho vigilantism, the varying degrees of psychosis existent in American culture (in an especially neat, inspired, and downright subversive touch, Riley's family prove to be every bit as crazy and deadly as Otis), and how basically everyone has a latent capacity for extreme violence and brutality. The fine acting by the top-notch cast keeps the movie humming: Daniel Stern as meek dad Will, Illeana Douglas as brassy take-charge mom Kate, Kevin Pollack as Otis' angry and abusive older brother Elmo, Jere Burns as the sleazy and inept Agent Hotchkiss, Jared Kusnitz as Riley's delinquent brother Reed, and Tracey Scoggins as tactless news anchorwoman Rita Vitale. The first-rate dynamic soundtrack of choice rock songs gives the picture an extra kinetic buzz. Thomas Yatsko's glossy cinematography provides a stunningly bright and attractive look. An absolute riot.

Since the turn of the century, it has become very popular in horror movies to randomly inflict excruciating pains on people that are generally innocent and didn't deserve all the agony. Movie franchises like "Saw", "Hostel" and all of their knock-offs made us very familiar with the term Torture Porn and the nowadays younger fans of the genre don't get upset anymore at the sight of sadist devices that cut off toes or poke out eyeballs. Of course, when a 'new' gimmick in films turns out to be successful, it immediately gets exploited beyond normal proportions. It has even come thus far that themes like torture, child abduction and blood vengeance are processed together into a horror … comedy! Yes, "Otis" is primarily intended as a comedy, but personally I still prefer to see it more as a horror flick with some light-headed elements. It's a surprisingly good HORROR film, with a couple of imaginative gore sequences and interesting characters, whereas the comedy aspects are rather lame and derivative, like obnoxious authority figures and character mix-ups. Otis Broth is an obese and pathetic pizza delivery boy; pushing forty and still under the strict supervision of his older brother who regularly comes over to insult and beat him. But Otis loves to escape into his very own perverted and psychopathic fantasy world, where he is the hunky quarterback of the high-school football team and eagerly anticipates to attend the school prom with his sexy sweetheart Kim. But his "Kim" doesn't exist, so Otis abducts pretty blond girls that he spots during his pizza rounds and subjects them to humiliating ordeals until they play along. When the foxy Riley Lawson manages to escape his dungeon, her family prefers to extract their own justice rather than to let the uncooperative FBI handle the case. "Otis" has a good pace, highly enjoyable horror moments, great performances from a terrific not-so-obvious cast and … a downright phenomenal soundtrack! Anyone interested in classic rock and/or pop songs from Talking Heads, Quiet Riot and Blue Oyster Cult? As said, the comical situations aren't very noteworthy – even though Jere Burns depicts a delightfully slimy FBI agent – but the plot is solid and well- elaborated. The torture set pieces are often gross, but realized with splendid make-up effects. Recommended!

Otis is possibly the most ineptly made "professional" film I've seen in at least a decade. Its incompetence is infuriating.It has absolutely no idea what it wants to achieve or what it wants to elicit. If it's a comedy, it's not funny. If it's a horror movie, it's not horrifying. if it's a commentary on vigilante-ism and the pop culture appeal of serial killing and kidnappers, it's not pithy, clever, or inventive.As other reviewers have pointed out, the script is achingly bad. How Daniel Stern and Illeana Douglas (and Kevin Pollak!) were persuaded to lend their names to this pile of stinking dung is mystifying.This is not satire. Satire needs to be played out with at least a shred of parody and there is no parody in this script. It's too badly written to comment on anything except how badly it's written.Please Tony Krantz, take the massive well-deserved theatrical rejection this film received seriously. Keep the day job. We beg you.

I was compelled to write an entry here only because of all the negative reviews I read BEFORE I watched this movie. I almost didn't bother with it because so many people put in their two cents worth and gave it a thumbs down. I'm so glad I watched it regardless. This movie is highly underrated and I believe the reason for this is that there are so many people who don't get that it is a Black Comedy. It is a social satire with a statement about the desensitization of the American white middle-class to the violence that is so pervasive in their (our) society. Either that or it is just plain funny as hell but also very sick and disturbing. It's a fine line between black comedy and bad taste but the director manages to pull it off. I would have rated it higher except that the ending was unfulfilling, but sets things up nicely for Otis II (which I will be hoping to see soon).