By JENN ADAMS
Starring Krsy Fox, Scout Taylor-Compton, Dylan Rourke
Directed by Spider One
Written by Krsy Fox & Spider One
Tubi Original
The past decade has seen bachelorette parties gain a bit of a dubious reputation. Whether monopolizing the scene at drag shows to drunkenly stumbling through bars decked out in penis couture, groups of women celebrating a bride-to-be are usually only fun if you’ve been invited to the party and have a tendency to grate the nerves of everyone else. Not so with BURY THE BRIDE, Spider One’s surprising horror film about the Hen Party from Hell. This raunchy weekend of country fun may go disastrously wrong for the bachelorette and her friends, but audiences will be treated to a deliciously jaw-dropping trip down the aisle of death.
June (Scout Taylor-Compton) is getting married! To celebrate the nuptials, her sister Sadie (Krsy Fox) and three best friends take a weekend getaway to a grungy cabin in the middle of nowhere. The run-down shack gifted to them by June’s mysterious fiancée is far from shabby chic and most of the girls are justifiably horrified by the disgusting accommodations. However, June insists she doesn’t care about material things and convinces her friends to relax and enjoy themselves. Adding to the tension, no one has met the man June will soon marry. They don’t understand why she’s rushing into a lifelong commitment and worry that she’s making a huge mistake. Unfortunately, bugs, critters, and piles of manure are not the only unwanted guests to the cabin retreat, and the women’s squabbles pale in comparison to the nightmare visitors who arrive with an ominous knock on the door.
Taylor-Compton leads the cast as bride-to-be June who tries to drown out childhood trauma with a rush to the altar. Fox co-stars as June’s older sister Sadie who takes the more traditional final girl role. Dylan Rourke proves to be a captivating wild card as June’s down-and-dirty fiance David, though his marble-mouthed southern drawl vacillates between grating and unintelligible. June’s three friends would feel like annoying stereotypes if they weren’t so much fun. Betty (Katie Ryan) is a mom excited to cut loose for the weekend and Liz (Rachel Brunner) is the group’s outspoken hipster. As her name implies, Carmen (Lyndsi LaRose) is the voluptuous attention grabber who makes questionable decisions to prove that she’s not like the other girls. Though limited in their development, the bachelorettes transcend shallow characterization by delivering captivating performances. Rather than a checklist of female archetypes, the group feels like an eclectic assembly of friends you know from vastly different chapters of your life.
Co-written by Fox, Spider One’s script is smart and funny, providing a clever variation of a story we’ve seen a million times before. The twist hits like a gut-punch with an ingenious rollout that will likely catch even the most hardened horror fans off guard. The one fly in the ointment involves the divide between David’s and June’s worlds. The saying “opposites attract” feels like an understatement and it’s difficult to figure out how these two would ever cross paths let alone fall in love. June seems to already know his equally rough-and-tumble buddies but seems shocked by their treatment of her female friends. These fancy city girls feel totally out of place in David’s southern-fried world and though it’s possible to suspend our disbelief, June’s devotion to her fiancée feels completely out of character. Fortunately, the second half of the film cascades into a blood-soaked nightmare before we get too much time to pick the relationship apart.
When most people hear the words “bachelorette party,” a specific kind of horror comes to mind. Spider One leans into the cringe and manages to capture this unique type of chaos with a fun characterization that flirts with satire. An extended dance sequence in which Carmen struts her stuff in the headlights of a pick-up truck provides just the right amount of self-aware fun before ripping the rug out from under us with a brutal twist. The shocking ending may be relatively predictable, but Spider One rides the line between emotional devastation and sick satisfaction and concludes with a final image that leaves us dying for a sequel. In the end, BURY THE BRIDE rises above the penis hats and horror tropes to deliver a wild and gruesome girls’ weekend with a killer payoff.
