September 22nd

I.B.S. (2013) directed by Mike O'Mahony

I picked this one up from the Flint Horror Con last year. They'd shown the trailer and it looked pretty funny in a Tromesque way, and my last $8 were burning a hole in my pocket, and I always grab at least one indie horror movie at every convention I go to as a rule. As you'd expect, sometimes you find gold, but most of the time all you've got is a turd. This one falls somewhere in the middle.

Considering the title and subject matter of the movie, I was expecting much worse. Typically when backyard filmmakers go for the gross-out in a horror movie, it's a complete amateur hour of bad acting, bad shooting, and bad story. I.B.S. surprisingly rises above these low expectations. James Costa, who plays IBS-sufferer Larry, is a decent actor. He keeps things relatively subtle during the film's first two acts, even when pretending to poo on a toilet (which happens quite a bit). Director Mike O'Mahony knows how to setup a shot and there's rarely any issues with lighting and sound. There's plenty of humor, nudity, and gore to keeps things entertaining throughout.

Storywise is where the movie falters. It feels like the filmmakers had an original idea -- a guy discovers that killing people calms his life-ruining IBS -- but had no idea where to take it. So, that's all the movie has to offer: a guy slowly killing more and more people until he slaughters a whole bunch in a bar and the movie ends. While a fun film much of time, it needed something more than two musical montages in a row of Larry's killing sprees.

So, I.B.S.'s destiny is the same as all con movies I buy and don't want to keep in my collection: hidden in the hotel room of the next convention we go to for some other lucky soul to discover.