Movies

A24 Brings Together All Your Favorite Ghosts and Ghouls for a ‘Slice’ of Demonic Pizza

Chance the Rapper and Zazie Beetz assemble a ragtag Scooby gang to defend their local hang-out.
Slice Trailer
By  · Published on August 21st, 2018

Chance the Rapper and Zazie Beetz assemble a ragtag Scooby gang to defend their local hang-out.

Is there a watering hole in your neighborhood that you would defend against Satan? Buffy was always quick to stake a vampire that dared to cross the threshold of The Bronze. The Happy Days crew were eager to slay devilish property developers eyeing the land underneath Arnold’s Drive-In. Even the Saved By The Bell kids protected The Max from disappearing into the continuity void when The New Class relaunched. Hang-outs are characters themselves and are as much a part of the gang as the humans that populate them.

A24 understands the power these locales hold over their citizenry. When they heard that writer/director Austin Vesely and Chance the Rapper were cooking up a hard-R comedy horror that centered around a pizza shop constructed atop a gateway to hell, they knew this was an epic fight against evil they had to back. Slice looks to be an absurd romp for folks raised on Scooby Doo and Peter Jackson.

Attempting to explain the plot is pointless. Let the trailer do the hard work.

Ghosts, werewolves, and Zazie Beetz. Oh my. This film will either be a colossal tonal wreck or pure comic genius. One thing is for sure; I gotta find out which one.

The fact that A24 has snatched this title up should give us plenty of confidence. While it doesn’t look like their usual brand of ultra-serious nightmare fuel (Hereditary, The Witch), Slice does appear to be something utterly unique in the field of contemporary horror. We are told that ghosts and werewolves are involved, but so far, all we see are some serial pizza boy slayings and Zazie on the case. I need to know how these other creatures fit into this insanity.

Austin Vesely came up on the scene shooting Chance the Rapper music videos. They’ve got a good thing going, but the most intriguing aspect to their relationship is how they’ve brought folks like Zazie Beetz, Paul Scheer, and Joe Keery into these shenanigans. We live in a nostalgia-hungry landscape, especially where genre is concerned, and hopefully, Slice will be more than a nudge, nudge, wink, wink movie. Seasoning your film with such talent can only elevate it above the usual wannabes.

Even more intriguing than their involvement, however, is the addition of Ludwig Göransson collaborating on the score with Nathan Matthew David. Göransson is Ryan Coogler’s go-to composer, having recently contributed his music to Black Panther and Creed (as well as Creed II). David has provided the beat to dozens of short films, and also Netflix’s upcoming Deadly Class series. No doubt there is a Mondo vinyl release in Slice’s future.

On paper, Slice is a longshot. Heck, the trailer doesn’t even seal the deal on what the eventual quality of the film might be. My faith lies in the talent involved, and the studio backing them. My ticket is sold, and I’m optimistic these maniacs will pull it off.

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Brad Gullickson is a Weekly Columnist for Film School Rejects and Senior Curator for One Perfect Shot. When not rambling about movies here, he's rambling about comics as the co-host of Comic Book Couples Counseling. Hunt him down on Twitter: @MouthDork. (He/Him)