Otis (DVD)
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It’s prom night. Seventeen-year-old Kim is all ready for the big event. She’s got her fancy taffeta gown on, her corsage is pinned, her makeup is perfect, her favorite song is playing in her bedroom. All she needs now is her date. The phone rings. It’s him: Otis.
Otis Broth (Bostin Christopher) is an overweight, myopic, sweaty 40-year-old… not exactly Kim’s dream date. In fact, her name isn’t even Kim. It’s the name he gave her. Otis also provided the revealing dress, the sweet flowers, the rad tunes… This prom is really his dream, and her nightmare.
Held captive for six weeks by the deranged man, Kim has had time to figure a few things out and now, she’s decided, is the time to escape. Making a mad dash for freedom from the basement which has been converted into a makeshift bedroom / prom dance floor (complete with dangling disco ball), Kim winds up accidentally offing herself. This is much to Otis’ consternation. It’s time to find another date for the prom, another Kim.
Out one night delivering pizzas, he meets her: Sixteen-year-old Riley Lawson (Ashlee Johnson) is perfect. She’s blonde, slim, cute, sweet and a cheerleader. Otis bags her — quite literally — and stuffs her in his tattered hatchback, and takes her home. There, the grooming of another Kim begins.
The FBI knows all about Otis’ M.O., they just don’t know who he is. So when Riley goes missing, Agent Hotchkiss (Jere Burns) is on the scene, setting up a command center in the Lawson household. He informs the family — Daniel Stern and Illeana Douglas as her parents, and Jared Kusnitz as her younger brother — that Riley is one of a half-dozen girls taken, but not to worry (much) because the perp does keep the girls alive for some time. That is, until they are found dismembered in dumpsters all over town.
The tightly wound FBI agent assures them by telling them he’s got an 80% recovery rate; but his right hand man reminds Hotchkiss that they “only found 60% of that Smith girl.” Riley’s parents aren’t settling for any 60% recovery rate: They conspire to track down and kill their daughter's captor, but the revenge-plot spins out of control when Otis' brother (Kevin Pollack) jumps into the mix.
Did I mention that Otis is a comedy? It’s the pitchest of black comedies, so well done that you’ll feel guilty for laughing but you won’t be able to help yourself. Unlike writer/director Tony Krantz's 2006 horror "message film" Sublime, Otis gives you your medicine with a spoonful of sugar (but look for a fun cameo from the evil orderly from Sublime, played by Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs). No doubt there's still sociopolitical commentary here, but it's layered in with crack-up comedy, wonderful wit, and gratuitous gore.
Christopher, making his film debut here in the title role, is a force to reckoned with as the enraged yet repressed killer who never had his own prom night. In fact, all of the casting is spot-on — it's nice to see Burns in top form as the acerbic, caffeine-riddled Special Agent; Douglas, Stern and Kusnitz sell the freaked out family dynamic; Johnson shows depth beyond her blonde locks; and Pollack takes his lumps with aplomb.
Otis is, to date, the best of the Raw Feed lot — it's nice to see this production company setting the bar higher and higher with each subsequent direct-to-DVD genre release.
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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson