When Joe Begos‘s holiday horror film Christmas Bloody Christmas was released back in December of 2022 (you can read an 8/10 review from our own JimmyO HERE), the writer/director let it be known that he was hoping to make two sequels to that movie. But first, he intended to wrap up a horror project he had been working on since the early days of the Covid pandemic lockdowns: an alien invasion horror movie that he stars in, because the alternative would have been to cast someone who was in the Screen Actors Guild, which would have added thousands to the budget. It was later revealed that the sci-fi horror project was called Jimmy and Stiggs, and it was released by Iconic Events and The Horror Section, a company that was just launched by genre regular Eli Roth earlier this year, in the United States last month. Now, it has been announced that Black Fawn Distribution has picked up the Canadian distribution rights to the film, and they’re going to give it a theatrical release starting on September 25th!
The film follows a down-on-his-luck filmmaker (Begos) who claims he was abducted by aliens, vowing to bring them down alongside his friend (Matt Mercer). Here’s how Begos previously described the project while speaking with The Boo Crew podcast (with thanks to Bloody Disgusting for the transcription): “I play a coked out filmmaker who is at the edge of his wits. Everybody around him has cut him off, and the opening scene is him just melting down. His manager hangs up the phone, it’s all shot in POV for the opening scene, and then he gets abducted by aliens, in this really f*cking crazy scene. And then he wakes up and he can’t really remember, but it starts to come back to him. So he convinces a friend to come over. His friend comes over and starts telling him, ‘Dude, you have a drug problem.’ And then while his friend’s there, they come back. And then his friend gets abducted. And he’s locked in the apartment because they start to control his mind and everything’s bricked off and it becomes this hallucinatory battle where he’s constantly doing a bunch of cocaine and painkillers because they put an implant in him, but he also needs to stay awake. So he’s doing coke and painkillers while blowing away these aliens. The lights are getting all f*cked up and the place gets covered in neon blood and the camera’s just spinning. And then his friend comes back but he’s infected with an alien and then I get abducted again.“
Begos originally thought he could knock out this animatronic alien invasion movie on a 35 day shooting schedule, but production stretched far beyond that and was broken up into multiple different filming periods.
Roth had this to say about the Canadian distribution deal: “I’m so thrilled to have Jimmy and Stiggs in the hands of Black Fawn Distribution. “They completely understand this audience, how to reach them, and how to turn this type of film into an event. The movie is a special one and those who see it will absolutely love it, but it takes some clever marketing to create an event and there’s nobody better to make this film a hit in Canada.” Black Fawn Distribution’s president Chad Archibald added, “Jimmy and Stiggs is a batshit insane film that genre fans need to see on the big screen. It’s a wild ride and we’re excited to be teaming up with Eli, Joe, and the entire Horror Section family to splatter their brand of neon alien blood across Canada.“
JoBlo’s own Tyler Nichols gave Jimmy and Stiggs a 9/10 review that can be read at THIS LINK. Are you glad to hear that Black Fawn Distribution is bringing the film to Canada later this month? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
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