Born in 1986 in Detroit, Greg DeLiso moved to New York to attend the NYFA’s one-year directing program in 2004. After graduation, DeLiso got his first job shooting a music video for PBK’s song “Tout Va Bien.” Around 2010, he and his high school friend Peter Litvin worked on a series called Short Films for Nobody. In 2011, DeLiso directed his first feature-length film, the documentary Canada’s Best Kept Secret, which Litvin did the score for. Around this time, the two started brainstorming ideas for a parody of the recent dark, brooding superhero movie trend. Filming began in 2010 and took roughly four to five years to complete as they had a minimal budget. Once filming finished, they called Troma to make a deal for distribution, and a contract was drafted in a week. Greg DeLiso’s Hectic Knife was released to the world in July 2016.
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Synopsis
The city streets are riddled with crime, and the only one standing up is the vigilante Hectic Knife (Peter Litvin). Armed with knives, Hectic kills drug dealers and thieves while practicing his knife-wielding skills in his shabby apartment. He gets a roommate, Link (John Munnelly), and a girlfriend, Frannie Glooper (Georgia Kate Haege), who constantly annoys him. Meanwhile, the evil villain, Piggly Doctor (J.J. Brine), plans to rule the world with his sidekick Porch (Traci Ann Wolfe). Piggly’s ultimate plan is to make the heads of children spontaneously explode, and only Hectic Knife can stop him. Along the way, he’ll contend with bagel-obsessed thugs, reunite with his estranged father (Randy Hutch), and find his true self. Unbeknownst to him, his girlfriend has been stealing his money, and Link gets kidnapped by Piggly. It’s up to Hectic Knife to defeat Piggly Doctor and save children from having their heads explode.
Review
If how I described Hectic Knife makes it sound like one of the dumbest movies ever, that’s because it is. The movie is intentionally bad, but not in a way that feels like they didn’t try, like with Llamageddon. It feels like Greg DeLiso and Peter Litvin set out to make the stupidest film they could come up with. Hectic Knife is constantly brooding and insults everyone he encounters, even his girlfriend, to the point that it becomes funny. Much of the humor is predictable, and some of the jokes drag in a way similar to Adult Swim. As a parody, it does an excellent job satirizing the tropes of many superhero movies around the mid-2000s to 2010s. While a product of its low budget, the black-and-white look could be a parody of Sin City and The Spirit. That said, the cheap aesthetic adds to the film’s campy charm.
The acting is all over the place, with almost everyone overacting for the camera, showing that this is a comedy. I wouldn’t call the acting bad, as everyone intentionally acts terribly, but your enjoyment will vary depending on your tolerance. While lacking in nudity, there’s plenty of blood and gore to satiate exploitation fans as everyone spews blood all over. The effects aren’t the greatest, but there’s the ambition behind them, especially when they add stop-motion and computer effects. Like the acting, the action sequences are intentionally bad, but it adds to the film’s humor. At slightly under 90 minutes, the film drags considerably at points, and plenty of scenes could’ve been cut. Still, this is a fairly impressive, occasionally funny parody of overly broody and self-serious superhero movies. Overall, Hectic Knife isn’t for anyone, but if thugs arguing over bagels for near eternity sounds funny, check it out.
Buy Hectic Knife from Amazon: https://amzn.to/42y2UAs.
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