A Funeral By Any Means
By now, you know how much of a sucker I am for wholly embraced absurdity and weirdness in cinema. Movies that know what they are and have no shame in being them will always be for me. Back in Black has that all covered in spades. A pitch black comedy thriller that satirically uses the macabre and suspension of disbelief to tell its absurdist story. Vibe check films like this are always predicated on whether or not they in fact vibe with the audiences watching it. And they have a tendency to ostracize general audiences, unwilling to indulge in the more fantastical and downright silly elements.
Back in Black is a very niche kind of thriller, one that uses ridiculous violence and unbelievable characters to execute is strange but ultimately comedic story. It does this successfully if you let it; giving it a chance is the first step. Once you do, Back in Black is a fun dark ride with solid payoffs and a rewarding albeit completely bonkers conclusion. It’s morbid and wicked but also comedic and warm, making Back in Black a sometimes sluggish, sometimes cringe but always fun movie going experience. If you’re looking for realism, for things to make sense and hold up to the slightest form of scrutiny, you’ve come to the wrong movie. This ones for the ‘I just want to be entertained’ crowd. And as far as empty calorie cinema goes, Back in Black is large popcorn lathered in butter.
Get Those Bodies to the Mortuary!
In a small idyllic town that feels ripped straight from an old fashioned backlot, funeral home director Clyde is on the verge of financial collapse. People simply aren’t dying like they used to. Longevity and wellness have drastically hurt his business, and as more people live longer the less funerals there are for Clyde and his family. Since we would do anything for the ones we love, his apprentice and granddaughter Sam (a by choice mute) makes the decision to help her grandparents but manufacturing accidents that have a rate of successful death toll.
At first, it’s as simply as removing screws from a broken freezer door, locking the local grocery store own inside and freezing him to death. But the town across the board is struggling financially, and the dead bodies don’t produce the elaborate and expensive funerals needed to save the business. So Sam must not only continue producing warm bodies. She has to escalate the scale of her accidents in an attempt to murder more financially set and willing to buy family members. These accidents catch the eye of the local sheriff and deputy, making Sam’s antics a cat and mouse game murder, accidents and funerals. Death is a business, and sometimes you gotta get a little blood on your hands to keep it going.
A Simple But Effective PremiseThat’s Having a Blast
There’s not a whole lot of thematic richness to Back in Black, and that’s ok. It’s not meant to be anything other than an absurd tale that satirically dissects the ideas of death and life through a business lens. It’s as dark as it sounds, as we’re technically on the side of the serial killer with good intentions instead of the law enforcement closing in on her capture. Taking anything in Back in Black too seriously is a mistake, as it’s better served just allowing its silliness and twisted perspective to run amok. Murphy clearly invites you laugh at unlaughable things, freeing yourself from the pearl clutching ‘you can’t do that’ kind of mindset and just relishing in the bizarre ideas of it all.
Murphy and his cast are having an absolute blast, with Walken as a curmudgeon old man mad at the world for not dying fast enough and Sam even without words giving plenty of expressive face acting. Walken gets many of the biggest laughs. Partly due to his legacy as an onscreen presence but also his grumpy old man portrayal of Clyde. It’s a good use of a big, cherished star, Back in Black smartly deploying his prowess and presence in the right ways. Though I’m not entirely sure why Sam doesn’t speak – it’s never really explained and only kind of hinted at some trauma that caused it – Ballentine has enough physical presence to be believable in a movie that frankly doesn’t need her to be real in any sense. At least, not outside of the world building within Back in Black.
Final Thoughts
These kinds of films only work with the cast is having as much as fun as they intend for the audience to have watching it. And in that sense, Back in Black is a knockout. There’s a ton that doesn’t work – it’s narratively messy, dry as chalk, one note in its repetitive joke and asks a lot of the audience to accept. But that can be forgiven when that same film prioritizes having a good time over anything else. And I’d argue that when it needs to in order to sell itself, it gets this good time part right.
When it’s operating at full strength, Back in Black is quite charming. In the end, it won me over. I don’t mind being asked to laugh at the taboo, and so long as the film itself unapologetically accepts itself and doesn’t try to convince you it’s something it’s not, it can work. But you do have to extend some grace to Black in Black for it to be fully effective. It takes some work on your part to buy into its absurd premise, and if you aren’t willing or simply don’t care to do so then it probably won’t work as well.
There’s little staying power, but as an easy, breezy, darkly funny thriller, Back in Black is a fine way to spend 90 minutes in our lifetimes before we shuffle off this mortal coil and give Clyde one more successful funeral.
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