Night of the B Movie: Great Production Values But Not So Fresh

I have to admit that I don’t really know much about B movies, other than the obvious: they’re kitschy, they tend towards the fetishistic, and they’re usually either bad or frighteningly bad. I was hoping Night of the B Movie would be a send-up that would help me understand and appreciate the genre, but instead I left the theatre with an understanding of squandered potential.

Now, don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t a horrible show. Circus Maximus had the best production values that I’ve seen in any Fringe play. They had great props and make-up— probably better than some of the B movies they were trying to send up. The look of it was really well done, but the script just didn’t do it for me.

For starters, there have been many, many evil geniuses who know everything, in literature, theatre, film and television. I don’t think the writing was strong enough to give the Mad Scientist (Matt Loop) much of a chance for him to do anything in the characterization beyond Invader Zim or Pinky and the Brain. It was sort of funny, but not very fresh.

And for all of the promise of spoofability in a B movie plot, the play turned out to be a very predictable ‘nerd boy meets nerd girl’ romance, which was disappointing. The women in the play, particularly Kimberley (Chelsey Moore) were under-written, although most of the characters came off as one-dimensional. Jennifer (Lisa Ovies) put in a workable performance, but I just don’t think any of the players had much to work with. Oddly enough, the character with the least lines, Barnaby (played delightfully by Jacques Lalonde) was the character I liked the most, and he certainly brought the most laughs.

The music wasn’t too bad, but the humour in the lyrics failed to deliver in much the same way as the humour in the script— I’ve seen similar before.

I could be wrong about all of this; as I’ve said, I’m not an expert in the genre. I walked home listening to a fellow patron who raved about the show and how much she liked it. But my ears didn’t hear the same audience approval that she had.

Maybe my expectations were too high. I thought a send-up of the B movie should be funnier than this play was; and if satire, there would be more insight into the genre than I found here. I can’t recommend it.