Oh, the perils of conformity. Tom (Joel McHale) and Janet (Kerry Bishé) have been happily married for fourteen years. Disgustingly so: the PDA-afflicted twosome can’t keep their hands off each other. At a friend’s annual cocktail party, the couple arrives separately and winds up having sex in the bathroom. It’s getting on their friend’s nerves, so much so that Tom and Janet are disinvited from an upcoming couple’s retreat, their security deposits returned. Or is it an elaborate prank? A guy named Goodman (Stephen Root), dressed in his finest Men In Black threads and purporting to be a government agent, shows up at their front door to inform the couple their contentedness is based on a chemical imbalance, and that a quick shot from one of the two syringes he’s packing contains the cure for what ails their bliss. Unwilling to allow someone to shatter their happiness, Janet does just that by beating Goodman to death with a handy piece of household decor. With their invitation reinstated and a solid premise set in place, first-time writer-director Ben David Grabinski decorates his darkly humorous tree with one gravity-defying ornament too many, starting with a bit of forced surrealism in the form of Janet’s recurring dream involving nine red chairs. But stowing the needles under the bed as if they were giant sea pods was a brilliant touch. And there comes a point in every horror film where the characters suddenly awaken to what’s going on, generally only to restage the action on another part of the set. Not this band of self-serving reprobates! Watch for a mass exodus the moment they catch on. From this point forward, the film took a turn for the purse, hopping the formula train to breezy box office thrills. A film without direction is like couple’s therapy without a shrink, which is exactly where this one ends. (2021) — Scott Marks
This movie is not currently in theaters.