This review is part of our ongoing coverage of the 2025 Fantasia International Film Festival
There’s something admirable about the lo-fi ambition of director Alex Phillips’ feature debut, All Jacked Up and Full of Worms. He’s clearly making exactly what he wants to make. The same can be said for his follow-up, the horny and occasionally hilarious, Anything That Moves, which plays like an exploitation film mixed with an 80s erotic thriller. It’s certainly a step up for this team in terms of coherence and ambition, but maybe a step backwards in terms of how it connects with its audience. There’s a lot to enjoy, but also a lot of aimless nonsense.
As if plucked right out of a softcore porn from Cinemax circa 1988, Hal Baum stars as “Liam”, a food delivery guy who always happens to F@#$ anything that moves, for the right price. He’s cute enough, amiable enough, and always gives his customers what they want. His best friend and co-worker loves him so much that she’s hired him before to have sex with her sister. And, yes, before you ask – even dad gets in on the action a bit. “You’re a goddamn fuck machine!” as one customer happily screams at him after he bangs her into another dimension.
Unexpectedly, people start dying. Not just people, but people with whom Liam has recently had sex. Not just dying, but being murdered in gruesome ways. As a couple of detectives chase down leads, Liam continues to hit the sack with strangers, leading to an ending that’s as underwhelming as it is mildly confusing. That doesn’t mean the journey to get there isn’t entertaining enough. I was laughing consistently throughout the film, usually as it related to the film attempting to evoke very particular themes from the movies it was referencing.
The picture looks terrific. Shot on gorgeous 16mm, Anything That Moves is gritty, grimy, occasionally feathered, and the nudity seems more visceral than it actually is because of it. And there’s a lot of nudity. A whole lot. But, it’s treated casually and everyone feels comfortable and respected within it, likely because it’s usually in the context of a humorous scene, as when one of Liam’s clients welcomes him inside his home, fully naked, only to have sweet Liam remind him to squeeze some lemon juice over the guacamole dip he just delivered. If there’s anything worse than a dead john it’s guacamole that’s started to turn gray.
Anything That Moves reminded me a bit of the full-on comedy, Deep Murder, from a few years ago. It’s not as high concept as that film, and isn’t just going for laughs, but they are definitely spiritual cousins. What Anything That Moves needed was to stick the landing, which it could not manage to do. That’s a typical problem with a film like this, that owes so much to other films and sub-genres. When you remove yourself from the place and time when something was popular, you remove yourself from the atmosphere of it all, and that sometimes leads to settling for plot developments that make more sense as homage and less sense as the building blocks of your own complete movie. This film didn’t F@#$ my brains out, but it was a fun enough lay.
Rating: **1/2/***** (WORLD PREMIERE)
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