Home Movies

An acclaimed phantasmagorical nightmare with a magnificently ridiculous premise bolts the door on streaming

If you had a million guesses, you'd never predict what it was about.

glorious
via Shudder

There are some movies that boast a premise so eye-catching and ridiculous that it’s almost a requirement to seek them out, for the sole purpose of discovering firsthand whether or not the end product can possibly live up to the derange potential teased by the logline. In the case of last year’s mind-melting Glorious, the synopsis was matched and then some.

Recommended Videos

Director Rebekah McKendry’s phantasmagorical Lovecraftian nightmare soared to a Certified Fresh rating of 86 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, but it proved to be surprisingly divisive among genre junkies, based on its significantly more disappointing audience average of only 56 percent.

Of course, that comes with the territory when creating something so singular and unique that it’s outright lunacy, although those heading in expecting weirdness got exactly what they were after.

'Glorious' leaves a nasty stain on audiences
Image: Shudder

Ryan Kwanten stars as a heartbroken man grieving over his recent breakup, only to find himself trapped in a bathroom stall at a run-down gas station. Naturally, though, there’s an otherworldly demon that dwells inside a nearby glory hole, one that just so happens to be voiced by Academy Award winner and character actor extraordinaire J.K. Simmons.

If you didn’t know a thing about Glorious and were given 100 attempts to try and correctly guess the plot based on a brief sentence or two and a couple of images, there’s an exceedingly high possibility you’d never come close. With that in mind, streaming subscribers may be getting more than they bargained for, after FlixPatrol revealed the one of a kind wonder to be one of the top-viewed titles on ViaPlay this week.