Stavros Halkias is one person who is ready to break all boundaries, quite literally. He is a fabulous comedian who has gained quite a significant global audience with time. Comedian Stavros Halkias is the talk of the town with his successful 2023 Netflix special Fat Rascal. That’s not all though, as he has also starred in Tires, Cumtown, and Stavvy’s World podcasts. He is ready to rise to even greater heights. In the renewed black comedy Let’s Start a Cult, produced in 2023, he has become famous and managed to write a script for it as well. Just from the trailer, you can already tell that it’s one of the best comedies of the 2020’s.
The film follows Chip Harper who tries to reunite his followers. It is quite entertaining, to say the least. He was hanging with his boring, ex-messiah-co, William, and they do exactly that. Their travels across the sad and miserable portions of America, accompanied by cult recruitment and excellent humor pretty much opens up the box of the possibilities of the plot and where it can take you. People have gone kind of nuts which only makes the plot even more insane.
The timing of the film couldn’t be better with the current political climate, global challenges, and social media pressure. These are belly laughs which are true and offer the refreshing memory of recent remarkable mockumentaries that have so successfully found their creative range like Borat Subsequent Moviefilm and Theater Camp. But it’s Halkias who walks away here and appears to be the creative waiting for his time in the sun.
At the beginning of ‘Let’s Start of a Cult’, a cultist has the available big joke set up, which is because the cultists is such a tragic social mishap that even people he loves would rather run away from him. This is one of the very first things the filmmakers are able to do when showing a clip of Chip in an interview with the cult called The Cosmic Dynasty. When asked, “Why do you think you are ready to transcend?” His answer was a little crude as well possibly: “I mean, because it sounds f***ing sick, honestly.” He then makes a stunning motion of wishing it could be possible to have a threesome with Marilyn Monroe, before stating that in Heaven “being gay is not bad… its actually cool”. That is our Chip.
After pestering the other members of the cult, Will, the cult leader now, sends Chip on an errand. Upon his return, he learns that the cult members had already carried out their mass suicide ritual without him. Now time relates to three months later, where Chip has returned back to his always irritating family. Now serendipity plays its role and through some twist of fate, Chip and Will are brought back together. Turns out the leader didn’t join his group in death.
When Chip’s indignation at being the patsy wears off – Will attributes it to the Universe saving him from the combined lunacy – the two men resolve to make another cult. Here they go through Middle America, where they managed to draw a real wannabe military, a flustered mother, and a creepy foreign hitchhiker into their endless fights.
From here forth, it is pure madness and comic relief all together. In fact, the movie elicits some sympathy for these whacky characters perhaps because they have been designed in a more simple manner. In the end, the focus shifts to Chip about whom the crux of the story utterly revolves as he hunts for the relationship of all relationships. He is that stupid and dumb that one can even argue why did he even in the first place? Part of the advantage is how successfully filmmakers and Halkias cozies Chip up as a loveable and obnoxious character at the same time.
Here comes the superb roster and they delivered. Others include Daniel Simonsen, Scotty Nelson, Zuri Salahuddin, Eric Rahill (The Bear), Katy Fullan (Curb Your Enthusiasm), Joe Pera (Joe Pera Talks With You), Tom Papa (Tom Papa: You’re Doing Great!), Ethan Suplee (My Name is Earl), and wrestler Phil “CM Punk” Brooks. Daniel Simonsen is unforgettable as the foreign hitchhiker, who has one of the best moments of the movie in his monologue. Eric Rahill is best known for his portrayal of Tyler, the wannabe Princeton dropped in not the right army; how he reads the lines is so whack and queee it is just an exquisite absurdist comedy.
Watch for a small development during the second half of the film that has something to do with Will. The film making process is so quick at times that the audience might get split here. Roll the eyes, let out a sigh, say a ‘C’mon’, but well, it is still entertaining at the end of the day.
Let’s Start a Cult also does well to mock the self-help obsession of the culture, depicting it as an edifying exercise in saying the same thing over and over again that leads nowhere. Well, for these characters, perhaps. After all, “it’s a process,” and most of these characters refuse to process anything at all. The movie takes every chance it gets to ridicule the mass’s stupidity, particularly how easily people abandon their own free will to follow other morons.
Great Wudos to the writers too, who are able to take what seems like throw-away elements, for instance, Chip’s family owning a gravel company, or a possum trap, and have them come back in the film as wonderful jokes later on. There’s enough of that to be able to appreciate how mindful the creators were in the process. As always, the desire to be worshipped flows in this narrative one with great intensity too, since Chip wants to be ‘all that’, but like all his followers do not seem to be on the same page. The guy is just irritating, to be fair. We’ve all had that one obnoxious and self centered person in our lives, here’s to remembering that person.
Whatever angle you take this film from, the filmmakers use other people’s social norms (and quirks) well, making Let’s Start a Cult quite a deliciously stupid, funny film to watch. By the end, they might even make us wish for the next installment. Let’s Start A Cult arrives November 1; the film will be released in wide distribution by Dark Sky Film.
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