GLASS CASA (2024)
a review by Evan Landon
What would happen if four women were at a bachelorette party, took drugs with a stranger in a domicile that was not theirs, then a male stripper winded up dead? A road to wackiness, that's what happens! That is my initial synopsis of 2024's Glass Casa, a ridiculous mystery-comedy by writer and director Laa Marcus. Laa only has two other short films to draw from: 2006's Waiting Room & 2016's Divorce Party which are whimsical in the same way as this one. Is that a good thing though?
The easiest way for me to describe Glass Casa to any random person walking down the street is that it is a bunch of drugged-up idiots lighting up a stranger's house while they are not there. I don't know how selling houses works, but I am absolutely fucking certain that you cannot just set up shop there. Let's just put that on the back-burner for now tho...
Glass Casa begins with a montage of what occurs in the movie, highlighted by a young girl's voice saying “this is what happened the night I was born...” I won't spoil too much here, but the child being born is a complete afterthought. Then there is a very Supernatural-esque title card that they may want to look into before they trashed with any copyrights.
Our story focuses on a group of women who are invited to a pregnant realtor's luxurious home that she is selling to throw a party for one of the girl’s bachelorette party. Simple. One girl, Evie (Geri Courtney-Austein) has the brilliant idea of bringing a male stripper over and, guess what... he dies in a bathtub from a head wound! Did he slip or was he bludgeoned and placed there? That premise will continuously get worse as the bachelorette, Jamie (Harley Bronwyn), is now tripping balls with the others and wants to keep fiasco from her fiance. Then the dude that was there beforehand that was squatting there, Charlie (Justin Michael Terry), keeps making things worse, I don't know... He might be the only interesting character to be honest. I feel like he was supposed to be a bit part, but then they realized the character was more interesting than anything else that happens, so they just gave him more screen time. This movie is a fucking mess.
From the very first scene, I just had a feeling that nothing was going to add up. When it did, the movie did it under the guise of humor that almost led me to believe that the events would unfold into some ridiculous and idiotic that I wanted to throw my shoe at the television screen.
Also, if the characters are all tripping on acid, where were all of the visuals?! That would have at least kept my mind busy on something else aside from the bullshit plot and stale acting that tries to make sense of the drab dialogue confined to a ludicrous script. I won't even attempt to explain to you what happens because I have watched this fucking thing three times and I still remember nothing. The characters are unlikeable, the story is stupid, and nobody with half a brain and stoned could possibly enjoy this. It did win some awards, I guess, so check it out for yourself. Maybe I'm wrong.
To sit here and try to muster any sort of validation as to why this pile of shit exists only serves to make me want to sit under a tree and have a pigeon shit all over my face. That is a little harsh though, so I will say getting mauled by a beaver with rabies sounds a lot more interesting than watching this one more time.
Note: I really do want to help independent filmmakers reach their highest potential, but when this is their highest potential, I cannot sit here and lie to you saying that this is a good movie. I am not Rotten Tomatoes, so nobody is paying me to give this anything more than my overall score.
My advice to filmmaker Laa Marcus is this: pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and put a little more effort into something that will actually entertain its viewers. There is some potential here, so don't get too down on yourself, Laa.
I don’t think taking acid or getting high or piss drunk to watch this movie will help you. Imagine some of the most insufferable, bland, directionless idiots run around tripping on acid when there is a very real problem is at all entertaining. It is obvious that the people making it had a good time tho, but that doesn’t mean shit to the audience. There are some post credit outtakes that are supposed to ingratiate the audience to this obnoxious group of characters that honestly made me hate this movie even more.
1 Out Of 5