The Wrath of Becky (2023)

The-Wrath-of-Becky-(2023)
The Wrath of Becky (2023)

The Wrath of Becky

Why make “The Wrath of Becky,” a limp revenge fantasy where a teenage girl kills Neo-Nazis in a cabin? The idea for “The Wrath of Becky” came after “Becky,” the decent but disappointing 2020 revenge fantasy that pitted fourteen year old Becky (Lulu Wilson) against a gang of skinheads she’d lured into her dad’s shed.

In both films, though, Nazis are just another genre trope because it doesn’t matter to Wilson’s bratty angel of vengeance that they’re in a nationalist militia group called the Noble Men. Neo-Nazi twerps are soft targets; rooting for them to be destroyed like Road Runner coyotes is supposed to be simple.

It’s perhaps still telling that both times around, with “Becky” and now with “The Wrath of Becky,” Wilson has to see someone she loves get killed before she gets angry enough to stab at would-be fascists. These morons aren’t standing in for real American hate groups like QAnon or the Proud Boys: this time, like last time, it’s personal.

“The Wrath of Becky” pointlessly rehashes the previous film’s bathetic dramatic setup: fifteen year old Becky watches another group of white guys kill one more surrogate parent. In thirteen year old Becky’s emotional logic which reasons that everything bad that happens is one injustice too many the sudden and seemingly arbitrary murder of biological father Jeff (Joel McHale) worked as an extra indignity alongside all the others. (Before he dies, Jeff tries to stop sulking post Becky and make friends with new stepmom and stepsister.)

In “The Wrath of Becky,” three insecure drips led by fratball-slimy Sean (Matt Angel) follow her home after she spills coffee on his crotch. They stumble upon Elena (Denise Burse), the only foster parent 15 year old Becky has connected with in between “Becky” and “The Wrath of Becky,” and pay the price. So then she swears to avenge Elena and tracks Sean’s group to a lakeside house, where they’re holed up waiting for instructions from Darryl (Seann William Scott), a cult leader like Q.

Most of what’s fun about “The Wrath of Becky” is watching Darryl’s tough talking louts squirm because these dudes also killed Elena, not to mention planned a January 6th type coup. Something’s obviously off about Sean and his guys, DJ (Aaron Dalla Villa) and Anthony (Michael Sirow), as far as Darryl’s concerned. Eventually Becky pops out and starts picking off Darryl’s men with booby traps she learned how to set during the years when he had her.

Killing bigots is a good enough reason for post-grindhouse lite entertainment like this, but if you’re really going there, you can’t stop halfway through an apology. The gross out kill scenes in “The Wrath of Becky” are presented as carefully staged bloody comedy gags; only one in three works as an especially satisfying demonstration of that sort of crass wit.

Directors Matt Angel and Suzanne Coote occasionally indicate that these kill scenes are the sequel’s primary justification in case you don’t pick up on it when Becky tells us she thinks “killing ****stains” like Sean is “a whole helluva lot of fun.” And in case you miss that momentary get out of jail free card rationale too or if, say, you nod off after all the guts have been spilled together in another roomful of half-witty bloodletting it comes again when Darryl asks Becky whether she’s having fun: “Wicked fun,” she says spunkily.

That there are no Jewish characters in either “Becky” or “The Wrath of Becky” is probably also telling. However, Elena appears as a Black supporting character in “The Wrath of Becky,” yet Darryl and his keyboard warriors appear not to worry about anything overly racist or antisemitic. They are just a bunch of good ol’ boy misogynists who get what they deserve from a teenage girl because, haha, any high schooler could take these guys apart! At least “Becky” has some believable backwoods heavies, led by a beefed up Kevin James. Unfortunately, Scott often looks more irked than angry in “The Wrath of Becky,” which makes his performance seem like stunt-casting even more than James’ against type work in “Becky.”

Darryl exerts some slight dramatic pressure on Sean and his crew, who eventually admit that they unwittingly led Becky to Darryl’s cabin. But these guys are never quite gross or hatefully stupid enough to make good punching bags.

The makers of “The Wrath of Becky” seem to understand that there’s a line of decency that must be crossed for Becky’s killing spree but they never really cross it. Early on, Becky daydreams about killing the diner patron (John D. Hickman) who asks her to butter his toast for him; afterward, her creators top off this bloody fantasy sequence with a cheap freeze frame and a voiceover aside that assures us, in Becky’s words, that “I didn’t actually do it.” As if we had any doubt.

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