The Influence
Laid off from his engineering job, down-on-his-luck Ross accepts an invitation to live in his cousin Lita’s guest shack in the microscopic desert burg of Magdalena, Arizona. There he finds a simpler life that appeals to him, a girl he’s crazy about, and some hideous miniature kangaroos with rat faces. Okay, let’s back up. It was during local bigwig Cameron Holt’s New Year’s Eve party that the entire assemblage celebrated at midnight by shooting their guns into the air. The problem? Their bullets hit something. Something god-awful. Right now it’s stored inside Holt’s smokehouse. And its influence is bringing some people fantastically good luck and others bad—very bad. It’s also turning Magdalena into a jungle of mutated creatures that would make Dr. Moreau proud: gigantic chickens, zombie dogs, living cookies, animate scarecrows, whistling flowers, and oh-so-much more. Yes, the criminally overlooked Little might go a little too crazy here, but his small-town-loses-its-shit recalls his masterful The Mailman (1991), and that should be all the recommendation fans need. --Daniel Kraus