Photo: The Pizzagate Massacre, courtesy of Grimmfest
Written by Mila Filipova.
If you have read or watched enough American media you would probably have heard of the Pizzagate conspiracy theory. Unfortunately, Grimmfest’s The Pizzagate Massacre is intentionally misleading.
The film sets up an interesting premise. Duncan, an unemployed middle-aged man, lives in his van and, alongside Karen, a journalist who has recently been fired, attempts to investigate a sex ring operating out of a pizza restaurant in Texas. However, disaster soon strikes as Duncan kills several people and struggles to make progress on his case. Karen is also a flawed character who is dismissively silent throughout and does little to progress the plot.
The Pizzagate Massacre trailer
A dramatic ending was not enough to make up for the hour and a half of bad jokes and non-existent horror. Mysteriously, this film made it into the Grimmfest lineup having been classed as an action comedy by IMDB.
There is an attempt to ridicule and mock conspiracy theory believers in general, but the humour is too weak and clunky to achieve any real point. Similar to the 2019 zombie comedy The Dead Don’t Die, the film attempts to use humour to relieve some of the pressure of an apocalyptic situation. However, because The Pizzagate Massacre is so lacking in tension or convincing danger, its comedy falls flat and fails to even make the odd sex cult storyline feel engaging.
It is a shame that the execution of this bland film couldn’t live up to the intrigue of the real world conspiracy. Disappointing and flat, The Pizzagate Massacre fails to provide either horror or sympathy for its repellent characters.
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