on 11/7/2025, 9:19 am
The set-up...
Even in the context of the often radically elastic parameters of independent filmmaking, Mickey Reece is a boundary pusher. Whether bringing his own playful spirit of experimentation to nunsploitation codes and conventions (Agnes, 2021), vampire traditions (Climate of the Hunter, 2019), or turning Ingmar Bergman’s Autumn Sonata (1978) inside out (Strike,Dear Mistress, and Cure His Heart, 2018), Reece is an artist whose enormous body of work is marked by an unwavering and unapologetic clarity of vision.
With his latest film Every Heavy Thing, Reece sets his sights on neo-noir, bringing his own distinct twist to the ’80s techno thriller. A charming and vulnerable Josh Fadem stars as Joe, a familiar everyman in a comfortable yet stagnant relationship with his long-time girlfriend Lux (Tipper Newton) who spends his days selling ad space for one of the country’s last remaining alt-weeklies. When Joe witnesses the murder of lounge singer Whitney Bluewill (Barbara Crampton) after a night out, he is inadvertently drawn into a weird, chilling web of high-tech shenanigans and good old fashioned serial murder, in which James Urbaniak’s tech baron William Shaffer plays an increasingly central role.
Kim Newman's review:
https://johnnyalucard.com/2025/10/31/frightfest-halloween-review-every-heavy-thing/
From the review...
This is a serial killer cyber thriller, but also a skewed look at a divided America – it takes place in High Town City, which aspires to have a tech boom thanks to an influx of techbros like William Shaffer (James Urbaniak) but is inevitably haunted by its underbelly, the easy-to-ignore Low Town.
...
Reece handcrafts his films, and this has a distinctive, retro look – grainy/gritty with lo-fi effects like Sheffer’s plugs-and-wires cyber-helmet, given to Lynchian noir asides but with a strong throughline. Every Heavy Thing is brilliantly cast – Fadem and Urbaniak make a matched pair of sub and dom, with the victim eventually exposing the limitations of the would-be mastermind (‘you only murder women – why is that?’) … and you get star-quality from Crampton (crooning breathily), Newton (technically, too obviously interesting to be ignored – but maybe that’s the point), Snarsky and People’s Joker director Vera Drew as Joe’s only friend from school.
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