August 15, 2025
by Carla Hay
Directed by Joe Begos
Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed U.S. city, the sci-fi horror film “Jimmy and Stiggs” features an all-white cast of characters representing the middle-class.
Culture Clash: Two filmmakers, who have an on-again/off-again friendship, battle against space aliens that have invaded the apartment of one of the friends.
Culture Audience: “Jimmy and Stiggs” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of filmmaker Eli Roth (whose The Horror Section movie studio released this film) and people who like to watch loud, obnoxious and idiotic horror movies.
“Jimmy and Stiggs” should be renamed “Silly and Stupid.” This neon-drenched, profanity-filled splatterfest (about two friends fighting space aliens in an apartment) becomes tiresome because of the flimsy plot and bad acting. It’s an inferior Rob Zombie wannabe horror film starring two Rob Zombie look-alikes. This garbage movie wants people to think that loudness and gore automatically equal a creative horror movie.
Written and directed by Joe Begos, “Jimmy and Stiggs” had its world premiere at the 2024 edition of Beyond Fest. The movie has been over-hyped because of the involvement of Eli Roth, a successful mainstream horror filmmaker who is known for 2005’s “Hostel” and 2023’s “Thanksgiving.” “Jimmy and Stiggs” is the first release from The Horror Section, the distribution company co-founded by Roth. There are many low-budget horror movies made by amateurs that are much better than the slop that’s dumped out in “Jimmy and Stiggs.”
“Jimmy and Stiggs” (which takes place in an unnamed U.S. city) begins by showing fake/parody trailers for two fictional horror movies: “The Piano Killer” (about a deadly piano) and “Don’t Go in That House, Bitch” (which is a parody of haunted house movies). That’s about as funny as “Jimmy and Stiggs” gets because the movie goes downhill from there.
“Jimmy and Stiggs” then begins and ends with a first-person camera perspective. The first-person point of view is from Jimmy Lang (played by Begos), a 33-year-old filmmaker who’s a stoner living in a messy and filthy one-bedroom apartment. Almost nothing is told about Jimmy and the types of movies that he makes. But based on how he lives, he seems to be struggling financially.
In the beginning of the movie, Jimmy changes his plans to meet up with a woman named Lexi (voiced by Riley Dandy), whom he’s been dating for an unspecified period of time. Jimmy and Lexi were supposed to meet a restaurant for a dinner date. But when she calls and says she’s running late, Jimmy invites her to have dinner at his apartment instead because he says the restaurant would be too crowded by the time they would get there. Jimmy says he can order food that will be delivered to his apartment.
While he’s waiting for Lexi, Jimmy gets a disappointing phone call from his agent: An unnamed movie studio rejected Jimmy for whatever Jimmy was pitching them. Jimmy decides now would be a good time to get drunk and high, so he snorts some cocaine and starts getting drunk on liquor. Throughout the movie, Jimmy goes on a drug-induced bender that includes more boozing and snorting of various drugs, including unnamed crushed pills.
In the beginning of his drug binge, Jimmy suddenly gets lifted up in the air, all the way up to his ceiling. And then, he sees what looks like three aliens from outer space. They look like stereotypical outer-space creatures: green with oversized heads on bodies that are the sizes of small children. “Jimmy and Stiggs” also has some mysterious astronauts and body-invasion themes.
Jimmy loses consciousness. When he regains his consciousness, it’s the next morning, and he doesn’t remember what happened in the hours since he saw the aliens. Lexi has left him angry voice messages where she yells that their relationship is over because he didn’t answer the door or any of her messages when she came by the night before. After watching some Internet videos of people who say they were abducted by aliens from outer space, Jimmy is convinced that the same thing happened to him. And so, Jimmy vows to kill any aliens that he sees in his apartment.
The rest of this awful movie shows what happens when Jimmy and his on-again/off-again best friend Stiggs Randolph (played by Matt Mercer) battle the aliens that invade Jimmy’s apartment. Jimmy asked Stiggs (a filmmaking collaborator with Jimmy) to come over to Jimmy’s apartment after not speaking to Stiggs for six months. At first, Stiggs doesn’t believe Jimmy about the aliens and thinks Jimmy is just stoned and looking for attention. Stiggs quickly changes his mind when he sees the aliens.
When they’re not shooting, bludgeoning, or stabbing the aliens—which result in Jimmy and Stiggs getting splattered and doused with neon slime (the best way to describe the aliens’ blood)—Jimmy and Stiggs get into cursing arguments with each other about why their relationship ended so badly. Apparently, Stiggs (who says he’s trying to stay clean and sober) distanced himself from Jimmy because of Jimmy’s addictions and because of Jimmy’s obvious rotten personality. After a while, Stiggs and Jimmy start to sound like an ex-married couple who went through a bitter divorce. It’s all so tedious and not interesting at all.
Jimmy (who shouts almost all of his dialogue) also doesn’t have the mental capacity to say two sentences in a row without the words “fuck” or “fucking” and the frequently used “goddamn.” Although this movie seems to have made the most out of its low budget and single location for its visuals, the weak story falls apart quickly and never recovers—no matter how much gore is thrown at the screen, in an attempt to distract from the terrible and overly repetitive filmmaking. The only real impact that “Jimmy and Stiggs” will have with most viewers is annoyed disappointment and/or an unwelcome headache.
The Horror Section and Iconic Releasing released “Jimmy and Stiggs” in select U.S. cinemas on August 15, 2025.