Killer Thong Review: The Underwear Is Flying and Nobody Is Safe
Cinema has already given us killer tomatoes, a murderous car tyre and, memorably, killer condoms. Humanity has apparently exhausted all sensible objects capable of turning against us, because we’ve finally reached the point where a leopard-print thong can hunt people. Civilisation has peaked.
Reno Anastasio’s Killer Thong is a 95-minute Canadian comedy horror made on a reported CAD $20,000 budget, filmed in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Anastasio appears to have looked at the proud history of inanimate objects murdering people and noticed an underwear-shaped hole in the market.
We have to admit, there is something inherently terrifying about the concept. If a leopard-print thong suddenly floated across the room towards us, we’d run. Not because we’d necessarily think it intended to kill us, but because there are simply no circumstances in which independently flying underwear represents good news.
The madness begins at a surprise birthday party for Alex (Rebecca Ambrosino), where two male dancers have been hired to entertain the women. They are credited as Cashier (Shawn Doucette) and Old-Timer (Junior Lirette), which already tells you roughly what level of reality we’re operating on.
Old-Timer worries that he’s past his dancing prime, while Cashier looks uncannily like somebody who might have wandered out of Right Said Fred sometime around 1992 and spent the intervening decades looking for the rest of the band. Eventually they emerge wearing leopard-print thongs and begin gyrating to techno music. So far, perfectly normal birthday.
Then Cashier starts producing electricity from his fingers. Nobody seems particularly concerned.
This man is apparently channelling Egg Shen from Big Trouble in Little China while wearing almost nothing, yet the assembled women react as though electrical powers are a standard optional extra when booking a stripper. If somebody hired for your birthday suddenly started firing supernatural energy from his hands, you’d think somebody might at least mention it. Instead, Old-Timer keeps gyrating in the background.
Alex eventually falls asleep during the performance, which is arguably the harshest review a male stripper could receive. Her friends apparently leave her there, and when she wakes the following morning she realises she’s late to go dress shopping with Julie (Cynthia Taylor). Things are already getting stranger.
Electricity begins crawling across walls and doorways while Alex rushes around getting ready, but once again she barely acknowledges it. The effect looks so disconnected from her performance that you begin wondering whether the electrical additions were introduced afterwards and nobody told the actors where they were supposed to be looking. Either that or Alex regularly has supernatural lightning running through her house and simply can’t be bothered calling an electrician anymore.
Killer Thong Gives New Meaning to Killer Underwear
Alex and Julie head to a clothing shop where, naturally, there is a prominent selection of leopard print. Julie spends a considerable amount of time declaring various items “sexy” or “super sexy”, just in case anybody watching is having difficulty forming their own opinion.
Then we meet the cashier. It’s Cashier. The stripper. From last night.
Neither woman recognises him. Admittedly, he is now wearing a white hat, and everybody knows that hats provide complete facial anonymity. Clark Kent wasted years messing around with glasses when Superman could simply have popped into a branch of Sports Direct.
The women notice a leopard-print thong remarkably similar to those worn by the dancers. After they leave, the garment begins floating around the shop before following them outside. And this is where Killer Thong introduces one of its greatest cinematic innovations: Thong Vision.
Whenever we’re viewing events from the killer underwear’s perspective, a transparent leopard-print pattern is placed across the image. The thong also pants. Yes, pants.
It doesn’t have lungs. It doesn’t have a mouth. It doesn’t have anything remotely resembling a respiratory system. Nevertheless, it follows women around making repeated heavy-breathing noises. At this point, asking questions is pointless.
The thong watches Alex and Julie leave in their car and somehow keeps pace with them, occasionally appearing ahead of them despite possessing neither legs nor any visible means of propulsion. Cashier also inexplicably appears further along their route, still wearing his magnificent disguise. Perhaps the white hat grants teleportation.
Julie then climbs onto Alex’s car roof and starts dancing to her favourite song, leaving a substantial dent. Alex barely seems bothered. Given that she currently has a flying supernatural thong stalking her, perhaps comprehensive insurance has simply dropped down her list of priorities.
The garment eventually follows them home. Julie strips down to try on her new dress while the thong spies through a small window. It then breaks into the room, electrocutes her and floats away.
Unfortunately, the illusion suffers slightly from the fact that you can see the wire attached to it. There is something beautifully appropriate about a film called Killer Thong having a villain suspended on visible fishing line. If the wire were digitally removed, we’d almost miss it.
Another woman attempts to escape but can’t get through the front door, so she adopts the battle-tested survival strategy of hiding in the kitchen beneath a blanket. The thong finds her. Who could possibly have predicted that?
From there the film continues escalating its surreal nightmare, eventually involving increasingly strange confrontations as Alex attempts to fight back. At one point, she uses Edvard Munch’s The Scream as part of a bizarre trap involving a blow-up doll head. Later she arms herself with a football helmet and sword. Just read that again.
There is, surprisingly, something underneath all this airborne underwear. Alex’s nightmare becomes tied to her sexuality and eventual acceptance of herself, giving the madness an LGBTQ theme that isn’t immediately apparent when two middle-aged men are dancing around in leopard-print pants.
That actually makes Killer Thong more ambitious than its title suggests. Anastasio isn’t merely stretching a joke about homicidal underwear across 95 minutes. There is an attempt to use the surrealism to explore Alex’s identity, anxiety and sexual awakening.
Unfortunately, having an idea underneath the silliness doesn’t automatically make the filmmaking surrounding it work. And this is where Killer Thong lost us.
There are deliberately cheap films and there are films that simply look cheap. The distinction is important. Something like Rubber can build an entire movie around a ridiculous killer-object premise, but the filmmaking remains controlled enough that the absurdity becomes the joke. Killer Thong frequently feels closer to an enthusiastic student project.
The camera work is basic, the lighting frequently lacks shape and the sound, production design, visual effects and editing all expose the tiny resources available. Some scenes run considerably longer than their comic idea can sustain, which becomes a particular problem when the entire production is operating on deliberate absurdity.
A flying thong is funny. A flying thong hovering around while you wait for the scene to progress eventually becomes laundry.
The performances are similarly rough. Ambrosino fares best as Alex, particularly once the character becomes increasingly confused by the surreal situation surrounding her, but the ensemble generally operates somewhere between exaggerated camp and simply awkward delivery.
Now, there is an argument that much of this is intentional. The film clearly wants the atmosphere of trashy exploitation and low-budget VHS-era horror. Anastasio is not labouring under the misconception that he’s making The Exorcist. The acting is broad, the effects are knowingly ridiculous and absolutely nobody involved could have reached the words “supernatural leopard-print killer thong” in the screenplay and thought they were creating restrained psychological realism.
But intentional badness only carries a film so far. There still needs to be comic timing, pacing, framing and technical control beneath the joke. The problem isn’t that Killer Thong contains a visibly suspended pair of pants attacking women. That’s exactly what we came for. The problem is that the surrounding filmmaking rarely elevates the premise into the glorious piece of rubbish it could have been.
Anastasio certainly deserves credit for how much he personally took on. Alongside directing and co-writing the screenplay with Doucette, he is credited as producer, cinematographer, editor, set decorator, sound designer, casting director, location manager and scout, as well as handling continuity. At that point we’re surprised he didn’t play the thong.
The production was reportedly completed without a conventional crew, which explains some of its limitations while also making its completion an achievement in itself. Making a 95-minute feature for around CAD $20,000 is difficult regardless of whether your antagonist has a waistband.
The film has also found some recognition on the festival circuit, including awards in categories covering cinematography, ensemble acting, experimental film, comedy and LGBT film. Clearly there is an audience willing to embrace exactly what Anastasio has made.
We can see that audience too. Put Killer Thong on at a party with a group of friends, supply sufficient quantities of alcohol and wait for a leopard-print garment to start panting at somebody through Thong Vision, and the film could absolutely become an event. People will talk about it. People will laugh. People may spend the following week checking their underwear drawer before going to bed.
We’re just not convinced they’ll always be laughing for the reason the film intended. Killer Thong is undeniably memorable. You cannot accuse a film about electrically charged homicidal underwear of lacking an identity. Anastasio commits to the concept, pushes it into increasingly bizarre territory and even finds room for a genuine message about Alex accepting who she is.
We simply wish the execution had matched the insanity of the idea. With tighter editing, stronger performances, more controlled cinematography and effects that enhanced rather than distracted from the jokes, this could have been an absolute riot. Instead, its technical shortcomings frequently overwhelm its deliberately trashy charm.
The film closes with a dedication to David Lynch. We won’t speculate on what Lynch would have thought of a supernatural leopard-print thong flying around electrocuting people, although we’d have paid good money to hear the answer.
