Bye Bye Kitty 2024 (JC Enterprises) Review
Bye Bye Kitty is the directorial debut of Jeffree Brown. Jeffree Borwn also plays the lead role and wrote the film. So as you can tell, Jeffree Brown is quite ambitious with his first outing. According to him, Bye Bye kitty hearkens back to old school comedies such as Caddyshack, Stepbrothers and Spinal Tap. It’s cool to see indie film directors embrace the comedy genre, as not many do. In the film, our main character, Eric O'Bannon ventures on a road trip in an attempt to prove to everyone that he's still got his magic mojo. With the help of a talented, yet troubled teen and an eccentric drifter, they maneuver through the paranormal, mixing lessons in life with hysterical outcomes.
The movie embraces some horror movie vibes in a sequence with mannequins.
First off, the film had a lot going on. It feels like there are six different subplots happening all at once and the movie transitions from scene to scene briskly and randomly. In this way, the pacing does not feel slow and there is always something happening, but there is to much happening that you don’t really get any satisfying payoff’s or emotional investments into any of the arcs or characters.
Which is a shame, because there are cool elements and concepts at play here. Olga Molina play’s Rachel O’Bannon, who is the wife, or ex-wife of Eric. (The movie does not really define their relationship to deeply) She also happens to be a witch who has magical powers. Apparently, she used to be a singer in the band and was happy during the flashback. But now she is a grumpy and vindictive witch. The movie does not explain how this happened. But Olga Molina really puts everything into the role and is one of the highlights of the film.
Had the film focused on one just a few characters, I feel like we could be cooking with something here.
Then we have Xiomara Briseno who plays Annabelle Phillips. She is a young girl who joins Eric O’Bannon and needs his help to get to a singing audition. What starts out as an interesting character, she quickly gets side line throughout the film and then even disappears at the end of the film. Along the way, they pick up Cecil, played by Robert Wesley Knight. Cecil’s arc is a trip in itself, so, apparently his cat died and he escapes from a mental institution with his dead cat in the hopes of giving his cat a proper burial.
Robert Knight is clearly having fun with the role and character. There is a scene where they go to a pizza restaurant, which just also happens to do pet cremations. It’s so absurd that it actually becomes funny. These are the part so the film that work, and had the film been more focused, I could see some true comedy here. But I find it strange that the film is named after Cecil’s arc when he is not the main character. There is also a arc with aliens and bigfoot to. We also have a bit of a horror movie sequence in the film to that involves creepy mannequins. If I took the time to explain all the subplots, we might just be all day.
One thing I gotta props to is the film is quite ambitious with it’s visual effects and make up. When the effects some together, they work pretty well and are pretty cool. There is a scene involving our main character parachuting out of a airplane which is quite impressive on the low budget. Also there is a bigfoot costume which looks really excellent to. However, not all the ambitious quite pay off as in the start of the film you can tell they tried to mesh together stock footage of a big audience with a band playing in a garage. Once you see it, the illusion can’t quite hold it together.
If you are going to be the lead actor in your own film, you better be ready to deliver a performance.
In terms of Jeffree Brown’s performance, he is unfortunately one of the weaker actors on display here. He’s at his best when he has to get angry, but mostly his performance comes off as flat sometimes and you have trouble immersing yourself with his emotions. There is a scene where he see’s bigfoot in the bathroom and then runs to tell the people in the gas station about it. But the line delivery comes off so flat and uninterested that you think he was board reading the line. It does not also help the director gave himself two sex scenes to partake in. Although one of the scenes it appears that he is acting in it by self as the actress recorded some very cringey ADR. Although the line delivery of “So Fast and efficient” is so bad it’s good.
Speaking of ADR, there is quite a bit of it during the film. There are some shots of just a exterior house and ADR lines being played. The switches from recorded audio to ADR can be a bit jarring at times. The sound mix is also a bit off, as the music was mixed very loudly. It even covers up the dialogue in some scenes where you can’t hear it.
In conclusion, I can empathize with Jeffree Brown. You want your directorial debut to be epic and ambitious. The effort and creative energy that went into the film is plain to see. I suffered from the same issue as having to many characters and a bit to much going on in my first film as well. So I am hoping that Jeffree Brown can take what works from Bye Bye Kitty and refine it for his next movie. Because there are some sparks of life in this movie.
