Lately I’ve been checking out a bunch of J.R. Bookwalter’s movies that I somehow missed out on over the years, films like ‘Ozone‘ and ‘Robot Ninja” (which I can’t wait to review) as well as recently hooking myself up for a rewatch with the blue ray of his bonafide cult jam- ‘The Dead Next Door‘!  But most interesting is that he’s just released a brand new film after a 20 plus year hiatus. His latest ‘Side Effects May Vary‘ is currently on tour. Yes the director himself has gone on the road to exclusively show this bizarre new film in select indie theaters only, well before it streams anywhere or has any other physical release other than an exclusive VHS (I need one of these!).

However I was able to check this nasty little nugget out early and soak up all the gory goo drenched shenanigans that ensue in this weird little adventure. Basically what we’ve got here going on is a fairly simple story, flashback a couple of years to the height of the latest pandemic when everyone was getting the covid vaccine like it’s a god damn McDonald’s hamburger! We have our main character a mild-mannered middle-aged man named GLENN ROLLINS (um yeah I love that obviously) who just doesn’t wanna get the jab despite pressure from his wife as well as currently being sick as a dog at home. Meanwhile we get a glimpse into what’s going on with the newest safest, state of the art Covid-19 vaccine that’s getting ready to hit the market. It’s set to safely treat the entire population of the planet. So deep inside a secret pharmaceutical research center that’s tucked away in the countryside, we witness a test subject get injected with an unknown substance that immediately causes some, shall we say, interesting reactions to say the least. It seems this new vax does indeed have some intriguing side effects and our main dude Glenn finally gives in to the mounting pressure. Essentially to satisfy his wife by “doing the right thing”, he reluctantly agrees to the latest, safest and MOST utterly effective, state of the art, yet totally experimental covid vaccine at a doctors appointment. This thing is supposedly gonna save the world from the sickness- so what’s the goddamn fuss about already – right?

Initially the thing makes him feel like a million bucks, but soon his normal boring life begins to drastically change – first off his wife immediately finds him more attractive (woohoo!) and feels the urge to get frisky with her hubby. There’s surprisingly plenty of gratuitous nudity here in Bookwalter’s latest (remember what that was back in the 1980s?!) to behold and that’s the first sign that I was seeing something that felt ripped from the “golden era of horror” but also cleverly grounded in modern times. Yeah, let’s be honest here you just don’t really see good nudity like this anymore in current films. There I said it! It was kind of a breath of fresh air as an avid 80s horror fanatic, especially seeing Brinke Stevens playing the nosey neighbor next door watching some genuinely shocking events go down eagerly with her binoculars. Yeah the scream queen who’d spent plenty of time in her “birthday suit” was now on the opposite end of the spectrum in a completely charming little role in this film.

Including her here was a treat  – 1988’s ‘Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama’ is a fave of mine & that reminds me I NEED to see the sequel! Ok though, from this point on things do get pretty perverse, but in that old school low budget, practical effects heavy way that I’ve really missed so damn much over the years. It’s really all quite charming. Not just all the fx work on display-but the general vibe of it. This one might even make a good double feature with something like ‘Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama’. It has that same sort of playfulness and disgusting charm.

Ok, well sadly for Glenn, he does develop a few “side effects” that sort of put the kibosh on his passionate sexy time session, at least for the moment. Confused and most likely humiliated by his sexual performance or lack there of, he races out into the city while his side effects do indeed “vary” in to the next level. This leaves him to encounter a zany cast of colorful characters along the way. He’s also develops a new hobby: SPOILERS: killing people! It’s quite obvious this safe and effective vaccine might’ve caused him a few more problems than the initial covid infection-but hey at least he’s not worried about relapsing with latest current strain I suppose?

Luckily the cops are on the case. One of his pals Jack, a former police officer, teams up with his old boss from the force. They quickly go on the move to find this heavily vaccinated freak of nature as he ventures deep into the night. So yeah, there’s lots to enjoy here not only as a horror film but also equally a social satire that puts a lot of our human behavior during the covid-19 pandemic under the lens of the microscope. The societal pressures to conform, big pharma propaganda, public paranoia, conspiracy theories & general trust in our Gov’t institutions are all addressed. But not in any sort of weird polarizing way. Instead Bookwalter lets the audience forget about the real world stresses of it all & just shows the whole damn thing play out in an entirely entertaining, absurd fashion. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a courageous effort of dark satirical commentary but it’s also really just a wild little old school splatter flick at heart. The kind of movie Romero might’ve even crafted if he’d still been alive today.

It also pleasantly breaks the usual tropes in sweet yet subtle manner, one of my favorites being the ex-cop character Jack and his boss Chief Tom Danvers. Their rather unique past on the force together, erupting with emotions tied to an intense night off the job at a holiday party is an interesting character study.  I love the way their interactions were handled in response to this unforgettable event at least for one of them. That being said as much as I enjoyed the film-the way it was shot looked maybe a little too crisp. Bare in mind I just recently watched Ozone & Robot Ninja, two bonafide 80’s & 90’s horror classics IMO. So coming into this one the look of it all was a bit shocking coming directly off his older work.

I love the grimy look of ‘shot on video’ stuff and the beauty of shooting a movie like ‘Robot Ninja’ on film. I know, it’s 2024, so to actually shoot on film is expensive and probably pretty annoying BUT Bookwalter fans I know personally really do crave the look of his earlier work. A small criticism, but if ‘Side Effects May Vary’ had been shot in a similar manner I think it’ve been that much more impactful to longtime fans of his productions.

At the end of the day though it’s most definitely a gory little horror character study for the modern times that really pushes the envelope, takes risks and dresses it all up in a bloody, slimy mess of old school oozing practical FX very reminiscent of Bookwalter’s cult classics. An absurd cautionary tale for the polarized pandemic era that we’re hopefully on the other side of-if you dig his earlier flicks check this out with a live audience – likely coming to the big screen in a city near YOU!