William Bagley’s Hold the Fort received its world premiere at the 2025 Fantasia Festival, and two movies in, the director of The Murder Podcast seems to be flying his flag for comedy horror. It’s a sub-genre that’s often deemed unbankable by the studio system and those who finance movies, so credit where it’s due as directors like Bagley are keeping it alive on the indie scene. While they may not be hitting the same highs as they did in the ’80s and ’90s, they’re alive and well, but the eternal issue with these films finding the balance between comedy and horror. It’s a tipping point that few directors truly grasp that partly stems from an entirely transient concern, as judging the success or failure of comedy is a losing battle. A major issue with comedy horror though, is the length, and credit where it’s due, at a gloriously direct 76 minutes, Hold the Fort never outstays its welcome.
After a fairly misleading cold open that suggests a movie with an entirely different focus, we meet Lucas (Chris Mayers), and Jenny (Haley Leary), a young married couple who are moving into their new dream home. Jenny’s a little more hesitant about the new home, but Lucas is fully on board – a status quo that’s maintained even after the representative for the local Homeowners Association (HOA), turns up. HOAs are a near alien concept outside of pop culture for these British eyes, and the ones in the U.S. are typically fastidious while being notoriously bossy and tedious with their rules – part their desire to craft a neighbourhood identity to their liking. The HOA in Hold the Fort holds an annual party, which is something that Jenny can get behind, and it’s then that the newlyweds discover this organisation is a little different to the others. This isn’t just any old party, but one with a historic tradition of fighting off the hordes of monsters that emerge from a portal to hell once a year, which the couple laugh it off as a local quirk until a coven of witches emerge from the smoking red chasm. What follows is a video game/siege like action horror that features wave after wave of unexpected horror bad-guys out for their heads.
I wont spoil the surprises, but the kill count is high, the blood is generous, there are at least a few headsplosions along the way, and two creatures garnered belly laughs after William Bagley’s script takes things in surprising directions. While Hold the Fort does tick some boxes when it comes to the demands of a horror movie, it’s not scary – but, let’s be honest, few movies genuinely are. The film is more consistent with its laughs, which are mostly character motivated even though not everyone has a chance to shine, and like other comedies of this type the humour itself can be a bit hit-and-miss.
Most of the laughs come from two characters – archetypal HOA representative Jerry (Julian Smith, who’s the absolute star of Hold the Fort), and a fully militarised assistant who’s roped in to help every year by the name of McScruffy (Hamid-Reza Benjamin Thompson)(and who’s also responsible for most of the quotable dialogue). Jerry is presented as a general and ring leader, but he quickly gets taken out of action after eating copious amounts of muscle relaxants in food, and thus becomes the subject of some great slapstick and ragdoll gags. The problem is that a lot of time is given to the low hanging fruit of redeeming the cowardly Lucas, relegating the far more amusing supporting cast to fodder or one scene and done material. It’s here where it could, and maybe should, have been padded out, allowing room for the story to breathe and for a more satisfying resolution. That being said, there’s a great gag for one of those characters during the credits, it’s a flashback and why it doesn’t unfold in sync with its position in the movie, I do not know.
Of course, being a comedy means that everything I say can just as easily be discounted, as although I bounded past the “six laugh test” and found it to be a genuinely fun time, someone else could watch Hold the Fort and find it hard work, unfunny, and a tedious mess. Comedy is subjective so reviewing it is a generally impossible and thankless task, yet I will always find time for movies that are so endearingly dumb and silly. I know there are better examples of videogame mechanics in film, and movies that have better acting and gags, but I enjoyed my time with Hold the Fort so very much. For me, it captures the essence of why I adore comedy horror so much as it’s the perfect late night watch or, if you’ve had a bad day and just feel rotten about life and the world, you can throw on a movie like Hold the Fort and things don’t seem quite so bad. And if that is good enough for Sullivan’s Travel’s, it’s good enough for me.
