Bubba the Redneck Werewolf is kind of a strange beast. It is classified as a comedy/horror movie but that is kind of a misclassification as, aside from a few elements that are traditionally seen in horror films, the movie never really tries to present itself as a horror film. That is for the best though, as the beer swilling lowbrow humor that the movie excels at works well for a raunchy comedy but would be less suited for anything that tried to take itself more seriously.
The basic plot of the film revolves around the titular Bubba, a goodhearted redneck who is a bit of a coward, trying to win back his love Bobbie Jo. In the process of this Bubba runs afoul of Bobbie’s current beau ‘Dangerous’ Dwight and ends up at the bar nursing a black eye. Frustrated by his lack of romantic success Bubba declares he would do anything to get back together with Bobbie Jo, even selling his soul! At this point the Devil appears to take Bubba up on this offer. Bubba is mildly taken aback at the Devil’s appearance but he assures Bubba that his red complexion is merely the result of a terrible sunburn. Bubba quickly makes a deal with the red fellow and goes home to sleep off the pain and alcohol. When he awakes the next morning Bubba finds that he is somewhat different than when he went to bed, much to his delight. But the Devil isn’t content with Bubba’s soul and attempts to corrupt everyone in the town of Broken Taint.
So this plot is genuinely not what I was expecting when I saw this title, mostly because werewolves and the Devil aren’t really connected in my mind, but this movie is a very fun experience. There is a lot of good comedy throughout the film with a ton of background jokes plastered over every set and location that the film takes us to but also with plenty of more directly funny scenes. Humor-wise the style of comedy tends to be pretty raunchy but usually not too over the top. A large portion of the humor comes from the Devil, who appears in a fair amount of the movie, making deals with people and generally running amok. It is easy to tell that this actor is having a great time in this role and that really helps to sell all the hijinks that he gets up to. Bubba’s actor isn’t quite as good but it still generally pretty reliable when it comes to the gags that tend to crop up around his new found werewolf-ness.
Costuming is a real bright spot though as WereBubba is appropriately hairy and silly but the real star as far as that goes is the Devil who just looks great. Really nice color and general design on his costume. It probably helped that the actor who plays the Devil has a naturally angular face so it really accentuated what they were going for with that design. The locations and sets all look very convincing as crappy run down places in the middle of nowhere Florida and the extras and minor characters all fit as exaggerated redneck types.
Unfortunately not all is well in Broken Taint, Florida. This is a lower budgeted movie so some issues can be forgiven by just grading on a scale but issues definitely arise. The sound design is a little odd, some scenes are significantly louder or quieter than others and certain characters speak very quietly in some scenes. There aren’t just technical problems though as the story kind of loses itself in the middle of the movie. Bubba goes looking for the Devil and it leads to a series of events that aren’t particularly funny and take up much more of the movie than they should. It is kind of a problem when there is a bad 15 minute segment in a movie that barely hits 80 minutes. It seemed like there were some issues with the script, either it wasn’t enough to reach the full run time so they had to pad it or maybe there were things they wanted to do that they didn’t have the budget for. For this level of movie though that isn’t too much of a problem as the movie ends on a high note and doesn’t overstay its welcome.
All in all Bubba the Redneck Werewolf is a fun movie that really shouldn’t be taken too seriously or read into that much. And it has a wonderful and catchy theme song so it gets some points for that.
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