Australian horror movies have no qualms pushing buttons. Sean Byrne’s underrated classic The Loved Ones took teenage romantic obsession to new extremes. Wolf Creek toyed with audiences accustomed to a sense of justice within the slasher genre. Even The Babadook featured one of the most grating children in cinematic history. Buttons. Were. Pushed. Bloody Hell, the brainchild of writer Robert Benjamin and director Alister Grierson, follows proudly in the grand tradition of Australian horror, remarking upon the genre in irreverent fashion while adding a more-than-worthwhile entry to its growing legion.

Almost no time is wasted before Benjamin and Grierson land ex-soldier Rex (Ben O’Toole, supremely entertaining in the role) in hot water. Rex’s routine flirtation with a bank teller turns sideways when a violent robbery breaks out, leaving him to take matters into his own hands. To questionable results. Eight years later, Rex’s act of vigilantism lives on in the mind of the American public, affording him an uneasy celebrity status. Deciding to abscond to Finland to get out of the public eye, Rex discovers his infamy knows no borders. Kidnapped by a kooky Finnish family with a devilish secret, the captured and wounded Rex must use his wits and military know-how to escape these direst straights.

Loaded with references to classic horror movies and shocked with peppy editing, Bloody Hell is a live wire affair that doesn’t for a moment stop delivering the goods. Grierson has O’Toole play double duty as Rex and the personification of Rex’s inner monologue; a no-holds-barred id version of himself, who occupies space in the film as a kind of chatty invisible friend. Some may find the back-and-forth between the two Rexes off-putting or a storytelling cheat (a way to project and externalize the inner workings of the character) but it allows O’Toole to really sink his teeth into the twisted psychology of the character and just have fun with it.

As Rex seeks to escape his sure-to-be-deadly confines, Bloody Hell refers to the superhero blueprint, with the ex-soldier tinkering at an escape plan not unlike a wounded Tony Stark in a fated Afghani cave. That O’Toole even looks like a low rent Robert Downey Jr. makes the comparison all the sweeter. With charisma to spare, O’Toole makes a convincing argument that he should make more regular appearances on our screens, be it in tv, film or otherwise. Whether he’s up against Finnish anthropophagists or American bank robbers, Rex is a firecracker ass-kicker, ready with a punch, a quip and a grin.

Early on, Bloody Hell begs questions about vigilantism and gun violence, though the intention is not to edify so much as exploit. But something just doesn’t add up. The creative team betray their ignorance of American’s abusive relationship to guns and our mystifying perspective on self-defense; where a “good guy with a gun” can never, ever be in the wrong. Silly Australians, the Second Amendment is bulletproof. In an almost fascinating instance of outside cultures not being able to fully conceive of the insane depths of America’s adoration of the firearm and the myth of the armed hero, Bloody Hell fails to understand the very nature of our country’s failed marriage to romanticized violence. Thankfully, this is but a passing fascination that’s abandoned when the film makes the jump to Finland.

To get an idea of the evolution of director Alister Grierson, consider his most notable previous effort: 2011’s much-maligned underwater 3D thriller Sanctum. Produced by James Cameron, the film was met with critical derision and commercial disinterest and dismissed the Australian director out of hand. Though Grierson’s latest is a good measure punchier and raunchier than Cameron’s work, the director reveals he obviously took notes working under the wing of the Blockbuster King. A good student, Grierson infects Bloody Hell with an almost Cameronian sense of momentum and witless fun; it’s pure mainlined entertainment propelling itself on its own rollicking fumes, never pausing to take a breathe or give audiences the option for a well-timed bathroom break. This isn’t Criterion material folks but as far as winking shlock goes, it’s hard to improve upon much.

This reason alone is enough to admit that it’s truly a shame that Bloody Hell has been forced to be piped into individual living rooms via a virtual film festival since this is exactly the kind of movie that midnight audiences hopped up on caffeine and alcohol go absolutely ga-ga for. Sassy and fun, with plucky heroes and sinister blonde villains and just bloody enough when it needs to be, Bloody Hell is precisely the kind of extreme guilty pleasure that plays best when the sun goes down and the shouting crowd demands a human sacrifice or ten.

CONCLUSION: ‘Bloody Hell’ relishes in the feisty nature of Australian horror, delivering an irreverent and hugely entertaining midnight movie that’s sure to get audiences blood boiling and fists pumping. Star Ben O’Toole is a blast in the pole position and director Alister Grierson proves himself someone to watch out for.