Attention, shoppers! Black Friday is now available on demand

You’ve experienced the shopping phenomenon, now watch the film! Black Friday is now available to view on-demand, just in time for the holiday season.

Bruce Campbell (The Evil Dead, Maniac Cop, Bubba Ho-Tep) produces and stars in Black Friday, which also features Devon Sawa (Final Destination, Chucky, Idle Hands), Ivana Baquero (Pan’s Labyrinth), Ryan Lee (Super 8), Stephen Peck and Michael Jai White (Spawn). The cast works well together, which always helps in a horror flick played mostly for laughs.

It’s Black Friday at We Love Toys, and a group of reluctant employees leaves their Thanksgiving celebrations early so they can cater to shoppers desperate for a sale. Working under those conditions is never fun, but Black Friday is especially dark at We Love Toys this year.

Store manager Jonathon (Campbell) opens the doors to the shoppers, and pretty quickly, it becomes evident that something isn’t right. Some of the shoppers become violent zombie-like creatures, who infect the other shoppers and employees, and our core group of characters finds themselves hiding out in the back of the store, trying to come up with a plan to stay alive.

Black Friday is a fun film perfect for a holiday watch

Not all of them manage this, of course, and we start to realize that a massive creature is assimilating the infected, causing it to grow and become more dangerous. The body count and blood spillage are high, and there is plenty of humor involved.

Despite that, there is some time spent on character development; we find out that Jonathon is pretty much the stereotypical manager-type, intent on generating more money for the company, mainly on the backs of his employees. This is the type of smarmy character that Bruce Campbell excels at playing, and he steals the show pretty much any time he is on-camera.

Ken (Sawa) is a long-time employee, half-heartedly pursuing the much-younger Marnie (Baquero), Chris (Lee) is a young, fairly new employee who dreamed of working for I Love Toys since he was a child, and Brian (Peck) is an obnoxious secondary manager. To give credit where it is due, Black Friday tends to provide us with a lot of character info during the short scene when the cast is talking about themselves while eating lunch meat-style turkey.

It was nice to see Ivana Baquero, who made headlines when she was cast in Guillermo del Toro‘s masterpiece Pan’s Labyrinth at age 11 and to see Ryan Lee, who appeared in Super 8 as a teenager. I always found him interesting, particularly in the video for David Guetta’s “Titanium.”

Overall, Black Friday is a fun holiday watch that doesn’t make you think too much. The kills are over-the-top, and while it’s not often laugh-out-loud funny, it did make me chuckle throughout. It’s not a deep, meaningful film, but it was an entertaining 84 minutes spent on a holiday weekend.

Black Friday is available to rent or buy on-demand.

Do you enjoy holiday-related horror films? What did you think of Black Friday? Let us know in the comments section.