A red band trailer has been released for home invasion thriller Becky, revealing the kind of inventive and unflinching violence we can expect from the movie.
The story follows the eponymous teenage girl, whose father takes her to his remote lake house to reconnect following the death of her mother and drop the bombshell that he intends to remarry. What should have been just a family melodrama is ratcheted up in tension upon the arrival of a band of escaped convicts in search of a mysterious key who brutalize Becky’s family, whereupon she uses all at her disposal as improvised weaponry to fight back against the invaders as they hunt her through the surrounding woods, the inevitable result being the gruesome deaths and mutilations the trailer showcases.
Most reporting on the film has highlighted the unusual prospect of seeing Kevin James play something other than a gormless simpleton and/or Adam Sandler’s sidekick, in this case a neo-Nazi cult leader. However, it’s also notable for the youth of its protagonist played by Lulu Wilson, who made a name for herself as the young child in horror outings of varying quality, and who is channeling serious vibes from Sarah Michelle Gellar in Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Sharni Vinson in You’re Next (side note: what the hell happened to her?).
It’s not specified exactly how a 14-year-old girl has been instilled with the determination and knowhow to wage guerilla warfare on a group of hardened criminals, but given the film’s utter lack of any kind of tongue in cheek tone, it will be something plausible and to be taken seriously, justifying what made her “as strong-willed and vindictive as they come.”
Becky is released on VOD tomorrow, as well as in a number of drive-ins, so viewers will be able to see for themselves if the film is as engagingly nasty as the trailer makes it look.