I can't deny it.

I started laughing even before I started watching the indie horror spoof OMG...We're in a Horror Movie!!!.

Why?

The movie poster reminds me of a young Joan Rivers. I kind of, sort of pictured this being a weird ass take on Weekend at Bernies with the now late Rivers as the corpse.

Yeah, I'm that twisted.

However, I can say, somewhat disappointingly, that the film is not a Weekend at Bernies spoof, though it does pretty much spoof on everything else within the cheesy, teenie weenie, pop horror genre with special tips o' the hat to films like Scream and Tucker and Dale vs. Evil. Best of all? There isn't a Wayans brother to be found.

Directed by Ajala Bandele and co-written by Bandele with Tom Hatfield, OMG...We're in a Horror Movie!!!  is relentlessly shameless in its spoofing and your ability to embrace that shamelessness may very well be what determines your appreciation for the film.

The film opens with six friends playing a board game. Tom's (Brendan McGowan) histrionic ex-girlfriend (Liz Fenning) shows up and the party of six suddenly becomes an ill-fated seven when someone just so happens to roll the dice and land on a 6-6-6.

This ain't going to be good, ya know?

Suddenly, a loud voice-over is heard informing all present that they are in a horror movie!!! Just in case they didn't really understand, the group's oddball (Nils Jansson) explains that they're all probably going to die and the killer's going to be the one they least suspect.

Duh.

Of course, panic ensues. Everyone basically falls into their stereotypical horror movie roles and OMG...We're in a Horror Movie!!! twists and turns its way into being a surprisingly funny, not particularly scary horror movie spoof.

The strength of the film, beyond the basic fact that Bandele has clearly gotten everyone on board with exactly what's going on here, is that this ensemble cast sure seems to be having fun together and they've developed a consistent tone throughout the film. While this seems like it could be incredibly basic, in lower-budgeted films it can be a major PITA (Pain in the Ass) to have the entire cast hit the right notes because, let's face it, there's not the cash available to edit it all into shape later on down the road.

No worries here.

The film, in fact, could have used a little more editing. At 107 minutes, OMG...We're in a Horror Movie!!! becomes overly formulaic in its mid-section and could have used, well, a C-section. In this case, a good 90-95 minute film would have been just about perfect.

This is not a horror film. If you go into it expecting to be horrified or expecting loads of gore, you're going to be wildly disappointed. However, it is a pretty darn good horror comedy filled with solid gags and a kitchen sink approach to filmmaking. Some of it works, some of it doesn't but it's one of those indie projects that causes you to set aside the other stuff you're working on while watching the film and just enjoy it.

The cast is uniformly entertaining, though it's a little weird to have the film's key sex scene be a touch disappointing - that may have been because I still couldn't stop thinking about Joan Rivers.

I swear, I don't have a Joan Rivers fetish.

Melissa Rivers? Maybe.

Picked up by indie distributor LeoMark Studios, which kind of makes me wonder if Leo and Mark are two different people or just two nerds in a basement who started a distributor, OMG...We're in a Horror Movie!!! is now available on VOD.

Written by Richard Propes
The Independent Critic