Review:
‘The Clutterbucks’ A Demon Baby, Melting Faces and the Thanksgiving From Hell
Rich Ronat’s dystopian dark comedy traps a spectacularly dysfunctional Texas family inside during a deadly pandemic, producing plenty of laughs before overstaying its welcome.
Writer-director Rich Ronat’s “The Clutterbucks” is a crass, chaotic and unapologetically over-the-top dark comedy. Its humor will not suit everyone, but viewers who appreciate political incorrectness, grotesque physical comedy and family arguments pushed into absurd territory may find it very funny.
Set in El Paso, Texas, in 2075, the film imagines a deadly epidemic that attacks its victims’ eyeballs before melting their faces and causing their limbs to fall away. As infection rates soar, the government orders a nationwide lockdown and threatens brutal punishment for anyone caught outside.
The premise turns the Clutterbuck family home into a pressure cooker. Rufus (Brian Gross) and Twyla Clutterbuck (Laura Vale) are preparing for Thanksgiving when their children return home with political grievances, old resentments and unwelcome news.
Their son Billy (Brit Scott) was expected to become a professional football player and secure the family’s financial future. Instead, he announces that he has quit the sport, plans to open a cannabis business and is expecting a child with his older girlfriend, Christina (Jacy King).
Twyla responds by deciding that the unborn child is a “demon baby.”
Laura Vale is the film’s comic engine. She plays Twyla as a fiercely opinionated matriarch whose confidence is matched only by her capacity for hysteria. Vale commits fully to the character’s irrationality, making Twyla appalling, exhausting and difficult to look away from.
One of the movie’s funniest sequences finds Twyla recounting her brother Charlie’s descent into alcoholism, a story involving clowns, laser guns and an emotional attachment too strange to explain sensibly. It may not sound amusing in summary, but the escalating absurdity works onscreen.
The supporting cast keeps pace with the madness. Scott gives Billy enough humanity to remain sympathetic, even as he dismantles his parents’ expectations. Bixby Baker also stands out as Adalynn, whose outlandish puppet expresses what the family members cannot—or should not—say aloud.
Ronat understands that broad comedy requires total commitment. He does not apologize for the grotesque imagery, exaggerated performances, or jokes that cross the boundaries of good taste. The screenplay draws its humor from political division, generational resentment, family hypocrisy and the special misery of being trapped indoors with relatives.
The dialogue frequently takes unexpected turns, and the film’s observations about modern American life can be sharp beneath all the nonsense. “The Clutterbucks” may be set in the future, but its feuding family, political arguments and social divisions belong unmistakably to the present.
That makes the 2075 setting feel largely unnecessary. Little about the production convincingly suggests a world five decades from now. The décor and atmosphere often appear retro or contemporary rather than futuristic. Fortunately, the Clutterbucks themselves generate enough strangeness to keep the film moving without elaborate science-fiction world-building.
The greater problem is its length. Too many comic setups continue after reaching their natural punchlines, while several scenes repeat ideas the audience has already understood. A significantly tighter edit would have strengthened the pacing and given the best jokes more impact.
Comedy depends on rhythm, and part of that rhythm is knowing when to leave a scene. Ronat has strong material, but he is sometimes too reluctant to cut any of it. The result is a movie that remains amusing while gradually testing the audience’s stamina.
Still, “The Clutterbucks” marks an energetic feature debut from a filmmaker with a clear appetite for provocation. Ronat takes the familiar dysfunctional-family comedy, adds pandemic panic, political warfare, melting faces and one allegedly demonic fetus, then lets the household tear itself apart.
The film is crude, peculiar and longer than it needs to be—but it earns its laughs.
For viewers who enjoy dark comedy, pandemic satire and deeply inappropriate Thanksgiving entertainment, “The Clutterbucks” delivers one memorably deranged family gathering.
Theatrical screenings available by booking — see contact information below.
ONLINE STREAMING/RENTAL: Goodrebelpictures.com
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