The Joys of Joe Begos
An appreciation of the director of 'Bliss' and 'VFW'.
Saturday July 19th, 2025, at the Sie FilmCenter in Denver, the long-running Scream Screen program offered up a 35mm double feature: a hyper-manic brain-destroying ritual comprised of Joe Begos’ 2019 film Bliss, followed by his latest film Jimmy and Stiggs about a month before it hit wider release last August. Together and on 35mm, the films looked absolutely stunning and felt all the more intense.
Jimmy and Stiggs is Joe Begos’ sixth feature. A talented multi-hyphenate filmmaker, known for films like Christmas Bloody Christmas, Bliss, and VFW, Begos is one of the most impressive genre filmmakers working today. It’s no wonder that Jimmy and Stiggs caught the attention of Eli Roth, who is helping release the film under the auspices of The Horror Section; the film is a shot of pure uncut fun (it recently received a physical release).
By Begos’ own admission — the director made an appearance in Denver to introduce the films, reportedly even bringing his own personal print of Bliss to be screened — the two films are his most personal, and it’s easy to see the director himself at the center of each, especially given that he himself plays the protagonist of Jimmy and Stiggs. The two films are also among his most feverish, hallucinatory odysseys, films that grab the audience by the brain stem and squeeze.
In Jimmy and Stiggs, Begos plays a filmmaker fighting off aliens in his apartment, alongside his estranged filmmaking partner. The simplicity of the premise belies the depth of the writing and the absolutely nightmarish energy of the film. Like Bliss, Jimmy and Stiggs feels like a drug trip gone wrong, or gone right, depending on which side of the screen you’re on. The film is drenched in fluorescent fluids; Jimmy and Stiggs glows like a radioactive chemical spill.
Begos’ films are steeped in narrative and generic innovation. Trust Begos to make a film that takes place entirely in an apartment into the liveliest film I’ve seen in years, or to fill a silly Christmas slasher about a killer Santa robot with the most endearing characters I can remember in a slasher. Genre tropes and specific homages combine and re-form into new iterations. In a world where millions upon millions of dollars are poured into huge cinematic nothingburgers, Begos delivers a lot for comparatively little.
And Jimmy and Stiggs is absolutely a lot; the film is a full-bore blast of insanity. One poster for Jimmy and Stiggs reads “Lose Your Fucking Mind”, and therein lies the film’s power. Begos offers viewers permission to go crazy. So do yourself a favor and lose your fucking mind.
