The Birthday review – cult Corey Feldman movie arrives after 20 years in film wilderness

This amusingly overwrought mystery-horror-thriller is both a new release and a reissue all at once. Originally made in 2004, and shown at a few genre-specific film festivals, it never secured distribution. Still, it found a way to get seen on alternative platforms like YouTube and homemade DVDs. Frustrated with the lack of appreciation for his work, director Eugenio Mira started sending copies of the film to directors he admired like Quentin Tarantino and Guillermo del Toro among others, exactly the right kind of guys who like to champion neglected cult classics. Meanwhile, lead actor Corey Feldman (once a child star in the likes of Stand By Me and The Goonies back in the 1980s) was conducting his own under-the-radar campaign on the film’s behalf. After it ended up getting shown via a scratchy master print at a screening hosted by director Jordan Peele (Get Out, Nope) and praised to the heavens, funds suddenly became available for a 4K restoration and a limited worldwide release. Now we can all see what the fuss is about.

Related: Corey Feldman: ‘The biggest problem in Hollywood is paedophilia’

Was it worth the wait? Yes and no. The Birthday takes its sweet time getting going as we meet Feldman’s nebbishy protagonist Norman Forrester in a hotel room, all gussied up in a prom-king tuxedo while he bickers with his bossy girlfriend Alison (Erica Prior). (The whole movie, by the way, takes place in this old-fashioned hotel, the action unfurling in real time, an adherence to Aristotelian notions of classical unity that used to be quite popular in indie and arthouse films but you don’t see so often any more). Nervous about meeting Alison’s posh family for the first time at a birthday party being held in the function room downstairs, pizza-parlour employee Norman must navigate between various awkward social interactions – not just with his partner’s family but at another do on another floor being thrown by a friend from high school (Dale Douma) attended by some beefy pharmaceutical bros. Meanwhile, there’s definitely something weird going on with the hotel employees with their deadpan expressions, toiling away in the background.

Just when all the farcical entrances and exits from the elevator start to get tedious, the stonker of a climax finally kicks in. It’s best to know as little as possible going in, but if you’re not spoiler-averse, think human sacrifice and cult societies. The use of muted sound and freaky choreography, executed with bravura skill, makes the whole trip worthwhile. Feldman is genuinely great, building the panic and heroism by tiny degrees, while Prior also deserves praise for bringing subtle shading to a rich-bitch role that on paper perhaps didn’t give her much to work with. It’s easy to see why it would all hit del Toro, Tarantino and Peele’s sweet spots – but it’s not quite the masterpiece some are hyping it as.

• The Birthday is on Shudder and AMC+ from 21 February.