FANTASTIC FEST 2025 REVIEW! Director/writer Kyle Misak presents horror comedy Bad Haircut. The film opens on a familiar note at a college party where the cool jocks bully the nerds. Some guys get the hottest girls and others are too introverted to say English words when a woman is in the room. Billy (Spencer Harrison Levin) falls into the latter category. He’s anxious, poorly dressed, and desperately uncool. His friends Sonny (Beau Minniear) and Dee (R.J. Beaubrun) try to help him but he seems to be a lost cause. They decide that what he needs to boost his confidence is a makeover: new clothes, new kicks, and most importantly of all, a new haircut. Billy does have some f****d up hair, to be sure. It’s long, curly, and unkempt. This situation seems like the setup for a light-hearted romp a la American Pie until we learn that a female student named Sam (Nora Freetly) has gone missing in town. There is darkness under this frivolity.
The boys take a fateful trip to their favorite barber, Mick (Frankie Ray) who presents as a cross between a pirate and a character from a broadway musical. Mick is older, and a bit worse for wear, but his flamboyant style is elegant and his energy is infectious and intense. His shop is a museum of reminders of bygone, more romantic, days. There are black and white nudie films playing on his TV. When Mick swings into action, it is a command performance, dramatically combining coiffure art and dance. This display of extroverted mania terrifies Billy, but Mick wins him over by insisting he looks like Brad Pitt. Mick has a nickname for everyone, and Billy becomes “Brad.” Sonny and Dee head out to buy new shoes for Billy, leaving him to the tender mercies of Mick. The mad barber starts the music and performs, dancing with his trusty scissors, “Mr. Snips,” and he does, in fact, give Billy a banging haircut.
“…what he needs is a makeover: new clothes, new kicks, and most importantly of all, a new haircut…”
In the midst of the haircut Mick impulsively decides he must have tacos. When he leaves to pop up the street, his sinister assistant Wimp (Martin Klebba) appears. Wimp is a small person with a big attitude, and he does not speak. Mick returns with tacos and the mood relaxes.
Things are going as well as possible when a man enters the shop and attacks Mick. Wimp shoots him graveyard dead, and this is where the film shifts into high gear. Mick and Wimp drag the body down to their basement, where Billy is challenged to face horrors he has never known before. Unexpected twists and turns follow as the tension builds into hysteria. Billy must deal with the insane duo, finding his own inner reserves of strength.
"…has greatness thrust upon..."
