By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
One of the reasons we love horror so much is that it plays well with other genres…for example, horror and comedy go together like peanut butter and jelly (or maybe Art the Clown and a chainsaw). However, despite one of the most famous faces in horror wearing a hockey mask, we rarely see a sports film take a walk on the spooky side. That’s part of why we enjoyed Girls With Balls, a funny horror film on Netflix featuring female volleyball players.
Girls With Balls On Netflix
Girls With Balls is a Netflix horror film with a simple plot. After a van transporting a women’s volleyball team breaks down, the athletes try to find someone who can help them get back on the road. Unfortunately, what they find is a group of crazed men who spend most of the film trying to hunt and kill our plucky protagonists.
Admittedly, Girls With Balls has a more obscure cast than some Netflix horror films, starting with Guillaume Canet (best known for Love Me If You Dare and Tell No One). It also stars Denis Lavant (best known for Holy Motors and Bad Blood). Rounding out the cast is Dany Verissimo (best known outside of Girls With Balls for District 13 and The Red Siren).
Again, this is a pretty obscure cast to American audiences because this is a French-Belgium film. However, I found myself enjoying this quirky cast more and more with every scene, and my unfamiliarity with their work helped make each punchline feel fresh. I never knew what direction these actors would take their characters in, and such unpredictability goes a long way in the horror genre which is (let’s face it) overcrowded with predictable films.
While Girls With Balls is finding a new audience on Netflix, its initial release failed to impress critics. Over on Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a dismal 45 percent. Critics generally complained that the movie didn’t have enough jokes or cheap thrills and that it relied on gory kills too much to stand out from its trashy horror movie brethren.
Now, that brings us to the deciding set: given that Girls With Balls was savaged by critics, why should you check it out on Netflix? First, it’s always worth remembering that professional critics often hate horror films, which is why they hated some of the best slashers of yesteryear. Honestly, the critical score should never be the primary reason you miss out on a film, but it’s particularly worth ignoring critics when it comes to spooky cinema.
Additionally, Girls With Balls has something most horror comedies on Netflix don’t: actual laughs. Each chuckle is darker than the one before, and the film is that much funnier because it doesn’t hold back on gores and gross-out gags. The result is the best of both worlds: a genuinely scary film that still manages to consistently deliver big laughs.
Finally, Girls With Balls is a Netflix film with that most important horror trait: a great ensemble cast. These women’s outsized personalities bounce off each other in a fun way, and they have an easygoing chemistry that keeps things light. The result is a great vibes film…the kind of movie that perfectly simulates a wild misadventure with your own raucous band of friends.
Will you find Girls With Balls as ball-spikingly entertaining as I did when you stream it on Netflix, or would you rather see this sports horror film pound sand? You won’t know until you stream it for yourself. Just remember the golden rule: if you can dodge a hunter, you can dodge a ball.
