SLAXX (2021) **

Libby (Romane Denis) is an idealistic young woman who gets a job working at a Canadian Gap knockoff store.  The place is buzzing with excitement as they have been chosen to be the site to launch a new line of jeans.  As the store goes on lockdown to prepare for the big sale, a pair of the newfangled jeans comes to life, goes crazy, and starts killing the employees. 

Slaxx is a none too subtle metaphor on corporate greed.  Companies like Starbucks always act like they’re trying to save the environment, but they’re really just trying to line their coffers by using trendy buzzwords to make themselves look saintly in the eyes of gullible millennials.  (Here, the jeans are “gender inclusive”.)  This sort of thing is an easy target, and yet the movie never finds anything to say on the matter besides the obvious.  It’s only seventy-six minutes long, so I’m sure a lot of this was just a means to pad out the running time.  However, the humor is too on the nose to really work as satire. 

Then again, what do you expect from a movie about a killer pair of jeans?  

While Slaxx isn’t exactly a hilarious send-up of the retail industry, it doesn’t quite work as a horror flick either.  All the lame jabs at corporate America would’ve went down smoother if the kills were memorable.  Most disappointing is the fact that almost all the death scenes happen offscreen.  The biggest letdown comes during a moment that seems to be building toward a big slaughter, but it cuts away before we ever get a chance to see it.  Bummer.

The most amusing bit involves the killer jeans doing a choreographed Bollywood dance routine.  If it couldn’t deliver on the gore, Slaxx really needed more of these WTF scenes to make it worthwhile.  As it is, moments like these are few and far between. I also dug the origin story that explained how the pants turned homicidal.  (It’s kind of like The Mangler, but with a pair of jeans.)   

Slaxx feels kind of like a movie Troma would make.  The only difference is, Troma would’ve made it fun (or at least gory AF).  I admire the concept.  It’s just that it stumbles hard when it tries to be About Something.  I think this would’ve made for a fun three-minute fake Grindhouse trailer.  However, even with a relatively brief running time, these slacks show wear and tear early on and become threadbare by the time everything’s all sewed up.