Joe Begos, the director, star, and all-around carnage wrangler of Jimmy and Stiggs, introduced his film at its FrightFest UK premiere as a “cocaine fuelled descent into extraterrestrial Hell.” Add in “in one night” and you've got the logline for this impressively high-octane and virtuoso display of indie filmmaking.

Shot entirely in Joe's apartment over four years, Jimmy and Stiggs is a phenomenal achievement—not least that Begos captured its frantic neon madness on popping, contrasty and grainy 16mm film (sometimes with a rig on, a running chainsaw in one hand, and prosthetics attached to his other limbs).

It's no wonder Eli Roth picked this up as the launch film for his new independent studio, The Horror Section—it really is the epitome of the creative horror filmmaking ethos. And while exec producer Roth has bolted two hilarious Grindhouse-style trailers to the front of the film—giallo-tinged The Piano Killer and forthcoming Snoop-collaboration Don't Go In That House, Bitch!—neither is much of a warm-up for the 80 minutes of mayhem that follow.

Jimmy (Begos) is a between-jobs filmmaker in Los Angeles, whiling away a night in his apartment with drugs and booze until his girlfriend pops around. Things go sideways when what he thought was a tremor turns out to be an alien invasion. He's soon confronted by wiry little Grey aliens with neon blood and repulsive mouth tentacles, desperate to lay something in human hosts.

As time appears to jump forward and go missing, Joe frantically tries to get hold of his old friend Stiggs (Matt Mercer) to help him survive the night. When Stiggs finally arrives, things only get weirder as the pair consume all the drugs and booze they can, work through some personal issues, and fight off a full-on alien assault in the now mysteriously bricked-up apartment.

Jimmy and Stiggs is bracketed by two impressive first-person-shooter (slurping/snorting) scenes. These are vividly filmed, although it was probably wise to drop the POV approach for the middle section—for our and the filmmakers' sanity—where the film eats up every reference it can.

The influence of Lovecraft Colour Out Of Space is hard to miss among DNA strands drawn from the breadth of sci-fi and horror. But mainly, this is Begos feeding early Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson ‘80s splatterfests through a grinder with orange fluorescent paint. There's barely a moment to rest as Jimmy and Stiggs take on the disarmingly fragile puppet aliens and each other. It's a brilliantly exhausting and meticulously physical film—where even the scratchy titles are opticals—and what emerges from the hectic spectacle and controlled improvisational mess is a raw and authentic kind of dark comedy (albeit covered in paint).

Jimmy and Stiggs is ultimately all about the characters of its title: two friends learning to overcome their differences and realise what really matters. There's a pounding bathroom scrap between the pair that gives the likes of They Live's infamous fight a run for its money, but ultimately, they need each other. The lively confrontations that find them coming to terms with themselves and their ridiculous but deadly situation result in a high swear count, as you may expect. But it's all played as straight as the crazed puppet-evisceration will allow.

That's the masterpiece cherry on top of this feat of horror cinema, making it more than a rush of blood splatter all the way to an ‘Evil Dead Space' climax.

Jimmy and Stiggs draws deeply on audience stamina, but anyone who makes it through to the end will have gone for a deliriously trippy and inspirational spin through self-destruction, paranoia and brotherhood.

Jimmy and Stiggs received its UK premiere on 23 August at FrightFest 2025.