Review: Yoga Hosers Hits Netflix! *Spoilers*
It’s finally happened Scare Makers! I have finally watched Yoga Hosers thanks to its recent release on Netflix. And may I start off by saying Oh Canada!
Written and Directed by, one of my personal favorites, Kevin Smith(Clerks, Red State, and Tusk) ; Yoga Hosers brings a fun and female bad-assery to the comedic horror genre.
I had originally prepared myself for this film to be incredibly terrible based on critic reviews and Smith constantly saying how bad it was in interviews, in a joking /not joking kind of way; however, this film was anything but. Sure, it had its cheesy moments and some characters had a cartoon way about them, but this film did exactly what it set out to do. This is a kid’s (tweeny-bopper) horror film. It’s fun, silly and just plain weird at times.
We start off with The Colleens, Lily-Rose Depp& Harley Quinn Smith, cell phone obsessed, yoga addict, best friends rocking out in the back room of Eh 2 Zed, the convenient store where they work- you know, because they are awesome and still manage to have fun while having a dead end job. Luckily they are 15 ½ so hopefully being a Clerk isn’t a life time goal (See what I did there?). Any who, we soon learn that Colleen M, Smith, has a crush on a Senor named Hunter Calloway, Austin Butler (The Carrie Diaries & Arrow.) and both Colleen’s are invited to a party hosted by the dreamy maple leaf himself. Did I mention he and his friend are actually “Satanists”? But, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Then the film goes on to show us the lives of the Colleens. We meet their yoga instructor, Yogi Bayer, Justin Long. Yes, his name is really Yogi Bayer. We soon meet the Colleen’s parents and this brings in a great cameo of Kevin Smith’s wife, Jennifer Schwalbach Smith, followed by numerous, but entertaining characters. Their teacher, Ms. Maurice (Vanessa Paradis) even gives them a history lesson on how Canada was almost taken over by Nazis where we get a great flashback scene with Haley Joel Osment as a member of the 3rd Reich.
Back to the senior party: actually, there is no Senior party because Colleen C’s dad (who owns Eh 2 Zed , Tony Hale) is running off for a spur of the moment vacation with his girlfriend, Natasha Lyonne, (Orange Is The New Black & Blade 3) to Niagara falls. This leaves the Colleens having to work at the convenient store, which they weren’t even supposed to be at that day (Last Clerks reference I promise). But, what do you do when you are two boy-crazy teenagers who want to party? You close down the store so you can play hockey…… I mean have a party in the store (That one is on Smith not me).
So the boys show up only for the girls to discover that they are Satanists – correction: Canadian Satanists and they want to sacrifice the girls by cutting them open. Before the boys can murder our heroes, however, little Bratzis, foot tall bratwurst Nazis, burst out of the boys and kill them. Eventually there are something - like 14 of these things, and they’re all played by Kevin Smith. It’s hilarious and disturbing all at the same time - Kinda like Deep Roy as the Oompa Loompas in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005). Eventually, after the hilarious fight scene, the police show up and arrest the girls for murder of the boys.
If that hasn’t been enough so far, Johnny Depp is in this picture as well, wearing the most discrete phallic looking nose prosthetic I have ever seen! Yep, he shows up and busts the Colleens out of jail to find a secret passage way in the Eh 2 Zed.
My favorite character in the whole entire movie, though, is Andronicus Arcane, Ralph Garman, a Nazi who froze himself in a secret room below the Eh 2 Zed while he grew clones out of bratwurst. Yes folks, that’s the origin of the Bratzis! Sadly, things don’t go as planned and he ends up waking up early - all the while learning English watching Netflix.
Then there’s an amazing final boss battle (because what teen horror comedy is complete without one?) between the Colleens and an art sculpture made of human flesh, bones, and filled with ….. you guessed it Bratzis!
Alright, so Yoga Hosers is cheesy in parts, but this is also the horror/comedy I would have wanted when I was a teen. It’s right up there with Monster Squad, which some readers might disown me for saying. It’s kids having fun, getting in trouble, fighting ridiculous but entertaining bad guys, and an extreme love for Canada. There are also jokes and moments in there for the adults.
Yoga Hosers is rated PG13, but the good kind of PG 13 before everyone became scared of words, and it’s currently streaming on Netflix (for the US only at the moment.) Hopefully, Scare Makers, you’ll enjoy this one as much as I did.
