Bad Hair (2021)

Bad Hair is the kind of horror-comedy that feels alive: a wickedly funny, sharply observed satire about image, ambition, and the price of “making it,” dressed up in gleaming 1989 style and set to a deliciously retro, music-TV vibe. Justin Simien leans into camp with confidence, letting the laughs and the unease feed each other until even a simple beauty routine feels like a high-stakes ritual. Elle Lorraine anchors the madness with a performance that’s grounded and sympathetic, making the movie’s wild turns land as more than just a joke, while the production design and supernatural imagery keep the screen buzzing. It’s not for viewers who hate gore or prefer their horror straight-faced, but if you like your scares served with bite, wit, and something real on its mind, this one is a blast.

Bad Hair is clearly trying to mash up a sharp satire about Black beauty standards and corporate image politics with a pulpy, creature-feature hair-horror premise, all wrapped in a glossy 1989 music-TV vibe. When it’s clicking, the production design and performances (especially the swaggering industry caricatures) are fun, and the central metaphor has real bite. The problem is it often feels like two or three different movies fighting for control—comedy, social commentary, and splatter horror don’t always blend, the story repeats its point, and the runtime makes the middle stretch drag. If you want tight scares or a cleanly escalating horror-comedy, this may test your patience, but if you’re game for an ambitious, messy genre swing with style and themes doing more work than the plot, you’ll probably find enough to enjoy.