When her husband goes to a wellness center and doesn’t want to come back without her approval, Kallie calls upon Dale Domazar, a washedup Cult Buster who used to have a reality show about his work.
From a story by Tony Burgess, Liv Collins, and jesse Thomas Cook, the film is written by Kevin Revie and directed by Jesse Thomas Cook. This film is one of those that is meant to be tongue-in-cheek, a parody of many different things including films about cults, reality television, Karens, and wellness centers. There is a ton in here and the film makes the most of it all to become a bit of an insane story that somehow works and begs for sequel. The film is hard to describe, something of a theme this year at Fantasia, without giving too much away (which has already been done above), yet it’s one that is easy to suggest to folks who love a good insane comedy. The film is quite well-written and directed, giving itself a style of its own and not taking itself too seriously.
The cast here is composed of, partially, those who created the film with Liv Collins as the Karen central to everything, Kallie Jones who is of course a bit much and annoyed as can be, which works great here. Her performance makes the character truly grating at times, especially early on, which works perfectly here. Playing her husband who’s more than willing to go live somewhere else without her is Justin Bott as Brad Jones. Bott gives poor Brad the right level of listlessness needed to be married to Kallie, something that leads to an interesting performance that is so low-key, it almost feels like a non-performance. Playing the titular Cult Hero, the Cult Buster, Dale Domazar, is Ry Barrett who goes to 11 and brings this character to caricatural life, something that fits perfectly here and works great for this reality television developed persona, a person more about the cliches than about being human at first. With this said, Barrett gives Domazar a bit more layers and makes him almost human. The cast here knows exactly what they are getting themselves into and are more than willing to all go fully committed for their parts and for the final products, bring “it” and leave “it” all on the screen.
In terms of visuals, the film has a bit of mix, especially at the start where it established Domazar and his television persona through his reality show and other works. The rest of the film is shot in a more straight forward way with a few handheld bits shots by the character of Domazar to keep his reality showmanship up. The cinematography by Kenny MacLaughlin and the editing by Mike Gallant work to create this here and give the film its look in a way that can only be described as its own. It’s simple in terms of style, but it’s perfect for the story.
Cult Hero is a one of those definite midnight movies types of films with a look that is a on the less-expensive side of things and a style that works for a bit of a bonkers story with a hero who just throws caution to the wind and makes this all about himself. The film plays with many bits of entertainment culture and pop culture that come and go, but seem to be mostly common for years, playing in the arena of low budget reality television, cult of personality, and other aspects that bring this all into one cohesive nonsensical film that just entertains.
Fantasia International Film Festival 2022 runs from July 14th to August 3rd, 2022