“Sarah, this is ancient shit,” Molly (Courtney Pauroso) tells her friend (Jessika Van) of the curse attached to the leggings that the two of them have been selling online in “Grind,” with the unopened inventory that they’ve accumulated thought to have supernatural consequences such as making the ladies’ favorite foods suddenly disappear into glitter should they be consumed — the red wine Sarah attempts to drown her sorrows in leaves her dry — and bringing a mythical villain known as the Axe Man around. The repercussions may be so old as to be unknown by the young millennials, but anyone watching them struggle to find a way out will recognize that the real villain they contend with late-stage capitalism, desperately trying to unburden themselves of an unforgiving business that seems like the only way they could make a buck these days.
It isn’t a knock on the fun anthology film co-directed by Ed Dougherty, Chelsea Stardust and Brea Grant to call it cartoonish, as if four Halloween-themed Looney Tunes from the Chuck Jones era were strung together to create a horror comedy very much of the moment. The spirited howl at this perilous moment for the working class seems like a natural extension of the feature directorial debuts of both Stardust and Grant, who put the cost of living at the center of “Satanic Panic” and “12-Hour Shift,” respectively with heroines overlooking their safety and sanity to prop up a system that hardly worked for them, and with Dougherty, who co-wrote the script with Grant, they cleverly bend horror tropes to reflect comically inhumane treatment of labor.
Built around an omnipresent corporation DGRN that finds its way into every part of modern life for a majority of the population, owning coffee chains and delivering goods right to your door, “Grind” is divided into chapters focused on a different facet of the new economy where old issues were never fixed for workers, as Molly and Sarah find themselves ensnared in a multilevel marketing scheme that may be no different than hawking Tupperware in the 1950s as saleswomen for Laila’s Leggings, though a sheen of girlboss entrepreneurship makes it seem as if they’re doing something for themselves rather than for a pithy commission. Among the others who find out they’re toiling away for not much in return are a food delivery driver named Benny (Vinny Thomas), who is called out to a “Saw”-like situation – or as he calls it “John Wayne Gacy’s mancave” – and is literally left holding the bag by a customer that doesn’t want to pay up after putting him through the paces; Joel (Christopher Rodriguez Marquette), who finds little use for his degree in 18th century topigraphical poetry, leading him to get a gig in DGRN’s content moderation division where he is privy to the worst videos that could be possibly uploaded to the internet, and the employees of Neptulia Coffee who are finalizing plans to form a union, only to have a mysterious box arrive at their door from the higher-ups.
The last of these comes across as a bit of a misfit when there’s even less time to develop any attachment to the characters than the other short segments with an ensemble to deal with as opposed to a primary character and has a seemingly less sophisticated enemy to face off against, but it works well enough as a punctuation mark for a film where blunt efficiency is prized by both heroes and villains and hopping from one part of the horror genre to another is like most any millennial’s professional resume. Like its scrappy protagonists, energy is often asked to compensate for a lack of means and can occasionally come up slightly short when creating a cohesive reality (as an actual product and brand, Laila’s Leggings needs some work), but Stardust, Grant and Dougherty find inventive ways to work in lively metaphors without ever making them feel strained. In a world where productivity is desired above all else, righteous fury is channeled towards something useful in what ultimately is a fierce entertainment.
“Grind” will screen again at SXSW on March 15th at 5:45 pm at Alamo Lamar 6 and March 18th at 10:15 pm at Alamo Lamar 4.