Sunset Superman (Fantastic Fest 2024)

Fantastic Fest isn’t just a horror film festival – it covers all the genre staples (action, sci-fi, & horror) and the spaces that intersect those divides. Lately, however, the heaviest load falls on horror, relegating sci-fi and action to supporting roles, which is true of both the microcosm of Fantastic Fest and the genre world at large. Case in point, in another generation action has been a more dominant force and in any other generation Michael Jai White would be more than just a familiar face to the masses and a beloved name to the genre die-hard – he’d have a stardom comparable to a man of such innate charisma and talent. This brings me to Sunset Superman (Don’t Mess With Grandma), the sort of movie a Michael Jai White type would be in after they are on the descent from their starry peak, and not just the latest of a long run of low-budget features.

Don’t Mess with Grandma will become Sunset Superman for its arrival on TUBI as one of their originals – and I have to say, I love what TUBI represents. In the video game industry, the triple-A industry regularly disposes of entire genres, deeming them unprofitable, when in reality they are profitable just not profitable enough. Instead of the industry thinking these genres (especially survival horror) to be dead, smaller indie outfits took it upon themselves to reinvent these discarded genres, breathing life into them anew, making them more inventive than they were in the hands of the mega players. As the proverb goes, be the change you’d like to see. In the movie space, it’s much the same, and indie streaming platforms embody the same philosophy. Companies like TUBI with their original strand are putting money on genres and stars that the people want, but the studio oligarchs don’t. With Sunset Superman, director Jason Krawczyk said he wrote the movie specifically for White because he was heartbroken by the downfall of the He Never Died series, he wanted to see “Michael Jai White punch as many people as possible in 80 minutes,” and that “he longed to capture a style akin to John Carpenter’s Big Trouble in Little China”, and here we are.

Michael Jai-White is JT, a put-upon employee of a home food delivery service by day, and by night a carer for his spirited grandma (or “Granna”) Jackie Richardson. Let’s not forget that Granna’s dog hates him and he has to trick his way into the house every time he visits. Whether chicken and corn chowder when they have neither chicken nor corn or fixing a sink, it’s a stressful time for the grandson. To make that load heavier, the house is set upon by a group of bumbling thieves who are after something in Granna’s house of pelts and nick-nacks that’s worth a lot of money, only these thieves didn’t bank on this lonely elderly woman living out in the sticks to have a guard dog both figurative and literal. What follows is a battle of attrition between the two groups, one group led by a moustachioed Billy Zane (Stan) and the other by JT, exhausted but all too willing to oblige in violence as long as his Granna doesn’t find out.

Tones are a curious thing, in many parts of the world they twist and turn with the wind but here in the West (UK/USA), they have to be consistent. A serious movie has to be serious throughout likewise for a silly one, and never should the two meet – yet in Sunset Superman, they do. We have some pretty strong violence, peaking with one of the would-be assailants being bloodily killed in the bathroom by the dog and butt jokes from Billy Zane in a surprisingly physical and near-unrecognisable performance (his voice gives him away). The score (by James Ellercamp) has a Saturday morning cartoon zestiness and the heist goes to some pretty dark places. Twists aside, the thing that defines this atonality is the heart. Alongside the violence, silly comedy and general violent zaniness is a story of a grandson who loves his grandma (and vice versa), underpinned by the subtext of appreciating what you have while you have it. Movies about grief and trauma are de jour in any modern genre festival, and more often than not that thematic core manifests as a dour experience – something you can never accuse Sunset Superman and Jason Krawczyk of being. This is a genuine movie full of sincerity and love for someone whether you like them or not, this will mean more to many than the League of Metaphoric Monsters.

Typically Michael Jai White fights against hard men from hard lives, if he were presented as he is in those movies, it’d be like using a tank to squash a few incompetent, awkward, and ill-prepared mice. Credit to the script then for humanising a mountain of a man who is an expert in multiple martial arts by giving him a bad knee and putting him in this situation after a full day’s work and a two-hour drive up-state, it makes him vulnerable. While strong as hell his defeat is far from impossible. Neither is this a martial arts movie, this is a brawler, one less interested in technique, poise and stances and more interested in throwing fools in pig masks through empty windows. It uses that model of a tank against mice for comedic and dramatic potential rather than to deflate potential tension. 

Sunset Superman is a fun movie that powers past any of those gatekeeper numbers people arbitrarily decide a comedy needs to be deemed funny. What’s more, the cast is strong; it’s visually distinct and it’s a hugely charismatic and likeable movie. Yet there will be those hardcore action fans who don’t think it’s hard enough nor does it have that one tentpole sequence. And for the tone police, Sunset Superman will drive them wild with fury – but they are killjoys who don’t deserve Krawczyk’s movie. For everyone else, you’ll see a sparkle. I know we live in an age where the two extremes are either GOAT or trash; but for many, if a movie does enough to make you smile – that is more than enough.   

Rob’s Archive – Sunset Superman (2024)