Over the last few years, reality has pushed the bounds of what anyone every presumed acceptable so greatly that satire struggles to maintain its edge in the execution. For instance, if someone were to tell you that you’d be required to figure out a way to maintain a job in order to earn funds to pay an exorbitant rent so as not to live on the street and avoid a deadly virus, you’d likely just think back over the last few years and go, “that tracks.” There’s no surprise or disquiet in a story with these elements because that’s become the norm for so many, especially with the general response to COVID-19 specifically being a “it’s here, get used to it” when the implementation of mitigation tools would severely reduce transmission and spread but aren’t used because capitalism. Just wait until anti-vaccine proponent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. takes over the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and we’ll likely see a rise in polio, measles, and more viruses all while the incoming administration encourages going to work “for the economy.” In the latest project from Friend of the World (2020) scribe/actor Brian Patrick Butler and A Hole in the Ground (2018) director Tony Olmos comes the satirical crime thriller Hemet, or the Landlady Don’t Drink Tea, an entertaining farce that would’ve felt so far from the truth if not for recent history cementing otherwise.
Kimberly Weinberger as Rosie Perkins in HEMET, OR THE LANDLADY DON’T DRINK TEA. Photo courtesy of BayView Entertainment/Charybdis Pictures.
In the small California county of Hemet resides several average individuals each trying to survive a national emergency as zombie-like individuals, called Salties, roam the streets in search of either more bath salts or human flesh. But that’s not the big threat that terrifies them, it’s being on the bad side of their landlady, Liz (Butler), who not only controls their rent, but whether or not they get to stay in their apartments, lease-or-no lease, thanks to a relationship with local law enforcement. As personalities begin to clash, an opportunity arises to unseat Liz and provide some stability in trying times, but Liz has eyes and ears everywhere, and once blood starts to flow, there’s no going back.
Brian Patrick Butler as Liz Topham-Myrtle in HEMET, OR THE LANDLADY DON’T DRINK TEA. Photo courtesy of BayView Entertainment/Charybdis Pictures.
The prior project, Friend of the World, is a black-and-white socio-political horror thriller about two people at the end of the world. In many ways, Hemet could be a prequel, the time before the end in which people still went to work despite the slow degradation of society because what else are you going to do? The script by Butler is by no means subtle in its declaration of idiocy as it relates to government, though no specific party is identified, because, frankly, both possess significant problems. Currently, one party wants to turn the U.S. into a Christian nation and the other, well, is preparing a stern letter in opposition. So, the initial setup of Hemet doesn’t exactly break barriers, but that’s not the intent. It wants you comfortable. The narrative wants you to think you know who these characters are and have the world in which they live be familiar before Butler and Olmos step on the gas. It’s here that Butler specifically shines as Hemet clearly takes inspiration from one of the dirtiest, foul-mouthed dramatists in English literature, William Shakespeare. The title of the film reads like it could be Twelfth Night or What You Will (a story involving cross-dressing/gender-hiding and screwing metaphorically with a steward), while the violence borrows from Titus Andronicus (spoilers). Shakespeare’s plays often spoke to the perspective of the groundling and not the government, using genres of romance, comedy, drama, and thrills to entertain amid sexual tension and hurling insults. On this, through a myriad of surprising character beats, Butler, too, speaks to the current groundlings about relevant issues of housing, community, safety, and the failure of the U.S. government to take care of its citizenry by focusing on capitalism over people.
Matthew Rhodes as Gary in HEMET, OR THE LANDLADY DON’T DRINK TEA. Photo courtesy of BayView Entertainment/Charybdis Pictures.
That kind of greed becomes systemic, creating environments in which landlords treat their renters as disposable instead of as people. Here, Butler inserts himself as Liz, the aged grandmother whom the tenants speak of with hushed tones until she appears before them, only to feel her geriatric wrath. At first, Butler’s heavy makeup/prosthetics is an odd choice, but, in Shakespeare’s time, men were the only allowable actors and played all genders, so this ends up aligning with the subtextual influence of the tale. Additionally, while there are several gender-appropriate performers who could nail the rough-and-tumble Liz, there’s an additional layer of ick that Butler’s performance brings out in a non-transphobic “it puts the lotion in the basket” way that inserts menace and disquiet well before blood starts flowing, a necessary component to understand just how demented Liz is as de facto lord and savior of the residents of her apartments. Surprisingly, it’s not Liz that instigates a shift in tone for Hemet, but a startlingly sequence involving Kimberly Weinberger’s Rosie and her musician boyfriend. It starts calmly enough and escalates in such a way that the whole feeling of the film upends until we come to realize the roles these characters play and the inevitability of the confrontation to come in the battle for survival of tenants vs. landlady. Upon this sequence, amid the various cast members, Weinberger immediately shifts to the forefront and becomes who the audience rallies behind. Thankfully, Weinberger instills Rosie with a “barren garden of fucks” attitude that empowers the audience to both relate to Rosie’s responses to the character’s trials and stick behind her. A hat tip once more to Butler for imbuing Hemet with a fucked-up fairytale vibe that utilizes the Salties as both containment for the characters and a metaphorical forest to be navigated, while slowly presenting Liz as Granny and Rosie as Little Red — only time will tell if Granny is really the wolf, but this is a horror satire, so you won’t have to wait long.
Nick Young as Tank in HEMET, OR THE LANDLADY DON’T DRINK TEA. Photo courtesy of BayView Entertainment/Charybdis Pictures.
While it takes a hot minute for all the characters and their relationships to be established, once Hemet ends Act I, things really start to cook and the masks begin to drop on everyone. Unfortunately, this sometimes translates to the hammering home of Liz’s love of cruelty, but it also offers some truly incredible one-liners that audiences are likely not going to forget for some time. Most importantly, though, even if some elements drag from time to time, Olmos presents a clear perspective about what’s proper wrong in times of crisis and that sometimes manipulating the system to win is a loss all its own. In short, getting yours to bring down a baddie can sometimes create a situation for you to become the baddie, thereby propagating the cycle. With this in mind, Hemet fulfils its promise as a fairytale (Grimm style) that cautions audiences that eating the rich creates a vacuum that’s best filled with uplifting forces or we’re just going to end up where we started.
Available on VOD November 26th, 2024.
For more information, head to the official Charybdis Pictures Hemet, or the Landlady Don’t Drink Tea webpage.
Final Score: 3.5 out of 5.
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