So far, 2023 has been a banner year for horror titles. Major releases like M3GAN, Knock at the Cabin, Talk to Me, and Totally Killer have been matched by a surplus of low-budget independent films, from When Evil Lurks to Malum and Cobweb. In the low-budget VOD arena comes the directorial debut of Fast & Furious actor Sung Kang: Shaky Shivers, a horror-comedy full of magic, mayhem, and ice cream.
With a script from film editor Andrew McAllister and seasoned horror screenwriter Aaron Strongoli, the movie bucks expectations right from the start. Where Kang’s most famous role casts him as stoic, charming badass racer Han in the Fast & Furious, the story of Shaky Shivers is freewheeling, feminist, and full of sass. The film follows two ice cream shop employees, Lucy (Brooke Markham) and Karen (VyVy Nguyen), who are cursed with misfortune by a witch (Erin Daniels). Lucy thinks she’s going to turn into a werewolf, and Karen, fearing for her best friend’s wellbeing and also not having much else to do, tags along in case she has to put down Werewolf Lucy.
All Hail Lucy And Karen
This is Markham and Nguyen’s show through and through. The script gives each actor plenty to work with but draws the young women thinly enough that Markham and Nguyen are able to bring plenty of their own to the roles. Nguyen, as the pragmatic “sweater boy” of the dynamic, makes Karen believably transition from the opening of the film, where she’s nervous and skeptical but nevertheless supportive, to the ending, where Karen’s been to Hell and back, her denim overalls stained with copious amounts of blood. Karen remains wonderfully gleeful through it all, never more giddy than when she has to try to perform a blood transplant with a pocketknife, a fast food drink cup, and a couple of straws.
As for Markham, playing the maybe-werewolf Lucy, she has a terrifically impulsive persona. Markham in Shaky Shivers is in her 30s and probably playing a little younger than that — Lucy and Karen are old enough to believably start their own business but young enough that they’re still haunted by how they behaved in high school. In the world of actors playing younger on film, she’s older than both Saoirse Ronan was when she made Lady Bird and Beanie Feldstein when she made Booksmart, but she nevertheless rocks the role. As an actress, Markham stands on her own — she has the quiet puckish, resourceful smarts and understated class Ronan brings to her performances as well as the brash, loud and proud amiability of Feldstein.
Normally, it’s hard to sell me on characters being played by actors who are clearly older than them, but Kang’s deft direction of the pair and the witty banter of the screenplay iron out any rough patches. Which is good, because then the focus is on Markham’s performance. She’s asked to do a lot in Shaky Shivers — in addition to the rapid-fire dialogue, mostly bouncing off her excellent scene partner, Nguyen, she also gives the best performance of the year of someone handcuffed to a steering wheel. (The other contender, in case you’ve forgotten, is Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One.) Seriously — I wish this is the kind of role that got Oscars attention. Give Brooke Markham an Academy Award.
Solid Screenplay, Shaky Story
The rambling story, lackadaisical tone, and unrelenting wit — all good things, by the way — make Shaky Shivers a difficult movie to summarize. Two young women go to an abandoned campground to maybe fix a werewolf curse. But so much else happens in this movie, and yet it’s also somehow not about the werewolf plot at all. Shaky Shivers is as much a werewolf movie as Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. It’s more akin to those aimless stoner comedies of the early 2000s, only this one is zhuzhed up with modern feminist subtext as it anticipates the horror tropes it’s sending up, as well as a radical carefree attitude that makes it easy to stomach the film’s gnarly special effects, including its blood, guts, and blood-gut vomit.
The joy of Shaky Shivers — and where some viewers may lose interest in it — is in the character dynamic, in how adamantly they stick together against cultists, zombies, and witches, and in how much they love each other through it all. The strength is certainly not in the plot, which only becomes more convoluted throughout before nosediving into lunacy in the final reel.
I don’t know how on earth that third act got to the state it’s in, but it’s so insane, so poorly staged and badly executed, that it’s in danger of derailing the whole thing. By the time the film reaches the end credits, it’s like chugging into a gas station with mere drops left in your tank. It’s a miracle the vehicle’s made it at all.
Conclusion: Shaky Shivers
The worst parts of Shaky Shivers are elements I hesitate to blame on its director. Kang shows excellent talent for telling a conventional story in unconventional ways with his debut film. And either he’s struck gold with his two leads, Markham and Nguyen, or he’s a terrific director of actors, but the temerity on display, the infectious affrettando energy, the sheer goddamn rizz, makes me want to make Shaky Shivers a regular watch every October. It’s perfect for those nights when the air gets chilly, the moon hangs low, and there might just be a maybe-werewolf hanging around the California desert.
Shaky Shivers is now playing in cinemas. It is also available to stream on Screambox and Hoopla and available to rent most anywhere else.
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